Cheyenne Scott and Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster illuminate new show The Home Project, which asks where – or what – is ‘home’?

Thomas Wolfe famously wrote “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” But as we navigate the next phase of a pandemic that drove so many to shelter at home, or make a prolonged physical return to a childhood or family home, it’s worth asking if that is really true.

Is home a place? Is it an idea? Is it specific people? 

Or some deeply imprinted, vestigial memory of all three?

“What is home for you?” is the central question at the heart of The Home Project,  a new live multi-disciplinary show co-presented by Howland Company and Native Earth Performing Arts. In the show, co-creators and performers Akosua Amo-Adem, Qasim Khan, and Cheyenne Scott, each narrate a personal monologue describing what “home” means to them. Their unique ideas are radically different from each other and exist in different worlds. Scott conjures the metaphorical, mythological story of a young woman who has lost her spirit and needs to recover it. Qasim Khan interacts with memories of his father that are summoned by the mid-pandemic experience of helping his mother pack up and depart their Newmarket family home. Akosua Amo-Adem explores the character Adowa Opoku, a Ghana-born Canadian whose hilarious stand-up comedy set prompts unexpected self-reflection.   

Though radically divergent in tone and content, the three monologues are tethered and thematically unified. As Scott describes it, “we ended up having common words and phrases in each of our pieces that tie them together. The vastness of my piece allowed us to break it up and braid it around the others. So these aren’t three separate pieces; they are all part of one journey. They each support each other.” They unfurl in a physical and emotional landscape of unapologetic, surprising contrasts: “Their uniqueness is what keeps the audience on their toes, and the rhythm is always shifting and evolving.”  

Presented in partnership by Soulpepper, The Home Project is now in performances until October 3rd, 2021 outdoors in the atmospheric Courtyard of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, where audiences of 30 are seated in physically distanced pods. Scott, Khan and Amo-Adem were selected by the co-directors and dramaturgs Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, Keith Barker, and Paolo Santalucia because of their interest in solo performance, writing and collective creation, plus their unique perspectives on what it means to call this country home. 

Scott is of Straits Salish of the Saanich Nation and Norwegian settler descent. Having learned theatre through a colonial lens, she is working to Indigenize her process through personal expression, land-based methodology, and storytelling. For her, home is truly a journey within: “It is spirit. It is a healing story of reconnecting, rediscovering oneself.” And because spirit is more abstract than the grounded settings of her fellow creators, she chose to heighten the experience by creating a hypnotic sonic world that she orchestrates live by singing with a loop pedal to evocative effect. 

She offers her metaphorical tale as a balm for tattered spirits. The story follows DILEM after the Saanich Nation is swallowed by a great flood that tears her from her spirit. She travels the waterways and encounters many trials and teachers along the way that she must navigate in pursuit of her spirit. Spirit narrates the piece, a knowing presence, who is with the audience all along. To create this piece, Scott used her land-based methodology by spending time with the Pacific Ocean, Thompson River, and Lake Ontario. “I hope this piece offers comfort to its audience – who has collectively shared in our disassociation during the pandemic – that we can return home to ourselves renewed.” 

The Home Project is a dynamic collaboration between three directors, four dramaturges, and three creator/performers and a partnership of three Toronto companies. According to co-director and dramaturg Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster (an Artistic Leader of The Howland Company) the collaboration between Native Earth and Howland has been a “committed, active partnership from the get-go”. Artistic leaders from both companies have been meeting and discussing this show for months and continued to rotate through the rehearsal hall in their shared director/dramaturg model. “It has been a wonderful experiment in a decentralized creation model, and both teams are learning so much from each other,” notes Ch’ng Lancaster. 

This process required extensive discussion and regular check-ins, which, a bit suprisingly, yielded a wonderfully calm atmosphere, where conflicts and problems were welcomed and unpacked. Ch’ng Lancaster is a fan: “Speaking for Howland, we’d like to keep the structures and lessons of this unique collaborative process, and implement them in our future works.” 

And as they moved towards opening, they remained in ongoing dialogue with Soulpepper’s production team, who stayed “so supportively engaged” in helping them to present this show. “This generous sharing of resources is so appreciated as the arts sector moves forward from the challenges of these last two years.” 

How did this collaboration feel to the performers?  Scott explains that “each of the directors have their own strengths, and we worked with all three of them in the room or one on one.” What she has missed most during the shuttering of live theatre is the in-room energy of sharing ideas and questions which elevate the work. In this light, she characterizes the artistic collaboration on The Home Project as ”such a gift to be expressing vulnerability in creation with the support of each other. Even though we each wrote our own pieces, I found it incredibly helpful to have the other creators in the room to experiment with having them read the other characters by being on stage or lending their voices to contribute to the sonic world.” 

Ultimately, The Home Project has been a life-affirming collaboration for the companies, the directors, the performers and – Scott hopes – the audience:  “For many of us, this is our first live show back after this long pause. And the prompt of ‘home’ offers a grounding and reflective experience” for all. After all, the Home Project is an intimate sharing with 30 audience members each night, where the fourth wall is broken and the audience is invited to laugh and respond. “That is the brilliance of live theatre!” she smiles, before adding that it has taken longer than expected for her to feel settled on stage again. After all, these are muscles that haven’t been flexed in almost two years. “I am a different person than the last time I performed, and it has been thrilling to navigate and rediscover.” 

In closing, Scott offers audiences some practical advice that you may have heard from parents at your childhood home as the seasons changed: “make sure to bring a jacket, as the evenings get a little cooler”.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2021