Christopher made The Home, an immersive piece of theatre about residential care, in collaboration with the Albany and Entelechy Arts, drawing on their years of shared work with older people. It premiered as part of Age Against The Machine – festival of creative ageing –  in Lewisham in September 2019 before touring to ARC Stockton Arts Centre. It will go to japan in 2020.

“You’re going to stay in The Home. Just for a few days. It’s a chance for you to be really looked after – and to give everyone else a break. It’s a great place. Rated excellent by the Care Quality Commission – best in its price range. Lots to do! Or you can keep yourself to yourself. You’ll love it. It’s not forever. Promise.”

The Home creates a care home where the audience are invited to spend two nights. They become ‘the cared for’ during their stay. The staff are played by professional performers and community participants who are all older artists. The piece is based on stories told by residents and staff living and working in care homes.

It’s an opportunity to experience the pleasures and problems of being cared for in a communal setting, exploring the care home as a place of reinvention and possibility for this hidden community of care workers and elders.

At each perforamance, 30 people come to stay in a theatrical care home for the entire weekend. They have their own room, treatment regime, entertainment and wellbeing programme as well as dedicated key-workers providing their care. There are also short events within The Home where additional members of the public can spend time with ”staff” and ”residents”.

This extraordinary immersive experiment investigating the performance of – and line between – care and control is an unforgettable feat of emotional engineering. The Home is neither a blanket celebration nor critique of the care sector, but a demonstration of how complicated and difficult it is. By making us genuinely vulnerable, The Home forces us to directly address the care industry and our own possible futures within it.
The Guardian
Read the full review by following this link.

 

About Christopher Green

His experimental theatre work includes Office Party; VIP, The Razzle; Prurience and This Show Has No Name.

He is a father, a son, a very lucky boyfriend, and unluckily a widower. He is also a Buddhist, a recovering depressive, and a very keen baker.

Find out more about Christopher Green here.

 

Top image shows Chris Green and a participant from a residential project that was part of developing The Home. Photo by Sorcha Bridge.