Ever had a dream about your childhood home — a vaguely surreal memory while asleep of revisiting places where you grew up and spaces that seem to have plots? You’re not alone. Such dreams are so commonplace, there’s an abundance of interpretation about them online.
In her aptly titled solo show Oh My Heart, Oh My Home, the British writer, designer, and theatermaker Casey Jay Andrews tells of Freddie, a solitary 33-year-old woman who returns, wide awake, to the home she grew up in, the house where her grandfather now lives on his own, where she once was happy —
She was here to keep her distance from a loud unignorable loneliness
that had crept into her life without her realising.
— and the touching story that unfolds is a dreamlike masterpiece in miniature.
Andrews, an affable performer (and even better poet), appears in black bib overalls over a black T and addresses us warmly. Centerstage, representing Freddie’s childhood home, is a tiny house, the insides of which Andrews reveals room by room as if stanza by stanza in a lyrical long-form poem:
We can’t help but paint our landscape with meaning.
Stories are forged into the places we inhabit
And the places we inhabit are forged into our stories.
Much is made of a meteor shower that recently dropped rare rocks around town. (A pre-show tune is “Great Balls of Fire,” and a narrator — played by Andrews when she is not playing Freddie — gives tips about how best to view such a cosmic display.) At first, these astrophysics seem there to evoke awe at the vastness in which we live our finite lives, but Andrews weaves this sky-high science into an emotionally grounded story whose tender feelings keep sneaking up on us.
At the aching core of the story is the bond between Freddie’s grandfather, Howard, and his wife, Win, whom he lost years ago — their relation to the rolling rural landscape and especially to the trees. Freddie recalls the two of them, how they met, and their abiding love, even as she recollects her youth:
She loved living in the house with her grandparents.
Surrounded by people.
Never alone.
Threading through the play is a suspenseful narrative involving Howard’s disappearance and Freddie’s consequent distress, a storyline I’ll not disclose except to say its resolution choked me up.
Unlike solo shows that center on the life of the performer, Oh My Heart, Oh My Home is a deliberately literary act, exquisite writing peopled with characters who, whether or not inspired by Andrews’ autobiography, read to us as artful fictions, more feelingful than docudrama. It is easy to see why this show was a hit at Edinburgh Fringe.
In Studio Theatre’s unfinished, all-purpose fourth-floor space is a playing area demarcated simply by a carpet. Andrews speaks as the narrator centerstage and as Freddie on a mic seated at a small table upstage right. Opposite, stage left, is Jack Brett, who plays beautiful incidental music (composed by George Jennings and Brett), sometimes sings (unintelligibly, except on a lovely duet with Andrews), and once emulates the sound of Howard’s dog.
Co-directors Dominic Allen and Steve McCourt pull the play’s disparate pieces together well enough; and lighting by Rachel Sampley, video by Sampley and Andrews, and sound by George Jennings create an experience of personal participation. A stunning variety of projections sweeps us into the meteor shower and animates the kitchen, bedroom, and other cubbyholes inside the cute house. (At one point a kinescope clip from the 1950s shows TV host Garry Moore interviewing a woman who actually got struck by one of those dark rocks from the sky.) The familial and generational emotions run deep but are never milked. They seem tucked in like surprises for us to happen upon. But it is the small-scale central set piece — mini-dioramas in boxes looking as though Joseph Cornell did dollhouses — that invites us into wide-eyed, waking wonder.
And to that end, the poetry in Andrews’ script is sublime:
Experts say wonder is an essential human emotion, a salve for a
turbulent mind. That it’s critical to our well-being, just like joy,
contentment and love.
Awe can come from big moments like seeing a meteor shower or climbing a
mountain, or small moments like helping your child take her first
steps, witnessing an act of kindness.It’s being in the presence of something vast that transcends our
understanding of the world.Awe is not easy to pin down.
But we know it when we feel it.
Running Time: One hour and 15 minutes with no intermission.
Oh My Heart, Oh My Home plays through September 22, 2024, in the fourth-floor Stage 4 space at Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($50–$62.50, with low-cost options and discounts available) online or by calling the box office at (202) 332-3300.
COVID Safety: Studio Theatre recommends but does not require that patrons wear masks in the building.
Oh My Heart, Oh My Home
Writer, Designer, Performer: Casey Jay Andrews
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Dominic Allen & Steve McCourt
Composers: George Jennings & Jack Brett
Musician: Jack Brett
Lighting Designer: Rachel Sampley
Video Designers: Rachel Sampley & Casey Jay Andrews
Sound Designer: George Jennings
Design Assistants: Maike Hitzeroth, Eleanor Strong, Lydia Reed, & Jack Brett
Venue Technician: Sean Preston
Production Stage Manager: Madison Bahr
