Dreaming on shifting ground: Homebound review

Beginning with birdsong and a meet-cute, the first moments of Homebound are open and sweet, with many possibilities as to what will happen to our young, idealistic central couple, Noah and Zara. Then the war is revealed. Every day life is curfewed and communities become broken by bombs. The loose threads of their reality, Zara’s identity, Noah’s family, and the home they want to create for each other, start to get violently pulled apart by a conflict which, though maybe mysterious and elusive to the audience, is all too wounding for them. Presented by the Warwick University Playwriting Society, the play is a new piece of student writing directed by Jiya Doshi and written by Anoushay Dar. Alongside the love story, the play follows two other pairs of characters. An older brother and his younger sister, refugees roaming aimlessly to try to find any kind of sanctuary, and two military officials, one stern and unyielding, the other curious and uncertain. And it is in this uncertainty, whether it be awkward first dates, seeking flights to safety, or the terrible malaise that war brings, in which Homebound works in.

Writer Anoushay Dar tells The Boar, “Writing the play felt like a big experiment because I was able to engage with our current climate”. Dar speaks about blending poetic and political reality, “I wanted to create characters that were close to us but also in a place that we need to question and try to research into, which feels like a big as but I think the team have really gotten a grip of the structure and narrative – so I’m very grateful.”

Homebound, to me, explores how humans try and make a life out of things that will always matter to them: love, hope, and trust, even when reality ceases to exist as they understand it.

Director Jiya Doshi adds, “As a first-time director I could not be more grateful for the wonderfully talented team of people I have had the pleasure to meet and collaborate with throughout this process. It was truly an honour to bring Anoushay’s incredible writing to the stage and do justice to her powerful vision.”

“Homebound, to me, explores how humans try and make a life out of things that will always matter to them: love, hope, and trust, even when reality ceases to exist as they understand it.”

“I felt truly emotional as I saw the audience experience what we have put so much work into over these last few months: every little pun, emotional exchange, and character arc that was envisioned and every small detail obsessed over to deliver the perfect experience was all worth it in that beautiful moment. A truly unique and rewarding experience.”

Though minimal in style, the directorial form of the play rhymes well with its content, something which is hard to achieve with new writing.

Woven together with subtly tense scenes, Doshi’s direction adds weight and clarity to a play that could easily be misinterpreted due to its sparce style. Noah and Zara’s love story is acted powerfully by Daniel Tope and Diya Sengupta. The most dire and bleak moments occur between the couple, such as when Zara confronts Noah to try to flee the consuming conflict, bringing up the family they had to bury in the back garden. Another particularly touching moment is when the older brother, played by Tammy Berman, freezes and breaks down, having to be comforted by his younger sister, played by Hermione Langston. The actors play this simple scene with a careful sensitivity that speaks to the universal emotions that the story strikes at.

The set is minimal throughout; two chairs and two boxes used whilst a projected screen shows the stories dwindling days and, as the war intensifies, the days marked with two or three Xs. Sounds of scrambled radios and echoing explosions create a wider space for the audience to imagine what is happening in this civil strife ridden society. Zara nurtures a plant at the start of the play with a spray bottle, a symbol of the home she and Noah might have, is again shown withering just as they start to scramble to flee. Though minimal in style, the directorial form of the play rhymes well with its content, something which is hard to achieve with new writing.

This atmosphere of shifting ground, roads not taken and thoughts unfinished and dreams never realised, is what punctuates the play’s prescient themes.

Blending the poetic and the political, the play’s pace may seem erratic, jumping from scene to scene with no easy resolution for the audience as dialogue is kept to essentials and little do the characters slide into monologue. This atmosphere of shifting ground, roads not taken and thoughts unfinished and dreams never realised, is what punctuates the play’s prescient themes. Such pressingly real stories of war, the occupation in Gaza, the civil war in Sudan, the war in Ukraine all sound out through the story’s action. Ultimately Homebound is hopeful, concluding that it is possible to be human in a bleak and threatening world. It is a great challenge to bring real and devastating stories on stage, yet this play shows it can be achieved in an entertaining and moving way.