Housing is one of the major issues in the UK today. It is not a subject which lends itself to dramatic presentation so top marks to Big Sister Theatre for producing a play in which the home is central.
Sharing is Caring opens in a squat somewhere in South East London where six flatmates are having a house meeting about the theft of tomatoes from someone’s room. On the blackboard behind them are the tasks of the week and instructions like ‘do not open downstairs windows’. ‘Sharing is Caring’ is one of the slogans put on the backboard to encourage a positive squatting spirit. The subtitle of the piece ‘The European Dream’ does not have an obvious connection with the play as presented, though the characters come from far and wide: Italy, Germany, Croatia, France, Germany and Korea.
The six are young professionals with jobs like engineer, website designer and lap dancer. All are damaged, all with parents dead or absent or inadequate.
They include the housemother Hannah, played as gloriously controlling by Rachael Cummins and feisty but fragile Marion, played by Klervi Gavet, who also wrote and produced the play. All the actors put in animated performances, with well delineated characters.
Their lives are filled with music, drugs, chats about sex and recounting the tragedies of their backstories. Tension arises when Marion stumbles on her best friend Irie, played by Jean Lee Summers, having sex with her ex, played by Luca Lavagetto. Is this the big deal it is made out to be? I didn’t think so, and neither does Irie who says, ‘You guys all live on top of each other so it’s hard to know what’s acceptable.’
This and other tensions between couples challenge the group dynamic with a fissure which opens wide when the bailiffs supported by police come to take the house.
Like a nineteenth-century inheritance drama, all the time the mantra is about the property: ‘House First.’ As Hannah says literally, ‘we made a pact!’
Squatting is now a criminal offence in the UK, something this play highlights, so the stakes are high: a conviction with prison time is a possibility. Should they trust the authorities and stay under licence or is this just a ruse for the bailiffs to gain access? The compromisers and the resisters are in conflict.
The structure of this suggests an egalitarian objective of giving all the characters a reasonable if not equal share of stage time. Each of the characters have their stories and character arcs which is the sort of structure which works well in television drama but in a 90 minute play the old structure of two or three leads with support is a more sure-fire way to maintain attention.
Playwright: Klervi Gavet
Director: Baris Celiloglu
Cast: Daniel Anderson, Rachael Cummins, Jim Duah, Klervi Gavet, Lucas Lavagetto, Jean Lee Summers
Duration: 90 minutes no interval
Until: 23 November 2024