THE HANGOVER REPORT – Geoff Sobelle creates a resonant HOME onstage, beguilingly and quite literally

Geoff Sobelle's "Home" at BAM Harvey Theater.

Geoff Sobelle’s “Home” at the BAM Harvey Theater.

Last night, I took a trip out to Fort Greene to catch Geoff Sobelle’s Home at the BAM Harvey Theater. I couldn’t have asked for a better theatrical experience for my final Next Wave Festival outing. The nearly wordless show soulfully explores the concept of “home” by quite literally erecting a house onstage and populating it with inhabitants, many of them culled from the audience. In a parade of meticulously crafted scenes, Home imagines the lifecycle of a house, envisioning its dwellers (many of them not necessarily occupying the same time) as they go about their lives – showers, meals, relaxation, love, parties, weddings, deaths, and so forth spill off the stage with cascading resonance and wistful remembrance.

Technically, the show is pretty staggering. The grace and skill with which Mr. Sobelle, alongside his team of superb dancers and designers, are able to execute this vision is awe-inspiring. As one of the audience members pulled onto the stage to partake in creating a home, I was more keenly able to observe and appreciate the precision and mastery of the direction. It was also a fun, affecting immersive experience to be creating various life experiences with my fellow inhabitants. With Home and his equally astonishing The Object Lesson, Mr. Sobelle has cemented himself as one of our very finest conceptual theater artists. He’s the rare auteur who is able to push the boundaries of the possibilities of theater, while being completely accessible. This is beguiling stuff.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

HOME
Off-Broadway, Play
BAM Harvey Theater
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through December 10

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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