Ask pretty much anyone, and if we’re really honest we’ll probably admit to some preconceived ideas about the causes of homelessness. We might mention drugs, alcohol, mental illness, criminal records, domestic abuse… All problems we don’t – and assume never will – face ourselves.
It’s not entirely our fault; the media plays a significant role in shaping society’s view of homelessness, and the more horrors someone has been through on the way to losing their home, the more sympathetic – and therefore interesting – their story. But it also places the homeless at even more of a distance from those of us lucky enough to have a roof over our heads and a nice warm bed to go home to. We may shake our heads at the sadness of the story; we may even buy someone a coffee or make a donation to a homelessness charity – but then we go on our way, safe in the knowledge theirs isn’t a problem we’ll ever face ourselves.
The truth is, though, homelessness isn’t necessarily the result of a dramatic crisis; sometimes it’s simply the product of a wrong move here or there. Molly, the central character in What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors, doesn’t quite know how she ended up homeless; she didn’t even fully register that she was for a good two weeks after being evicted. Maybe it’s because she was bullied at school. Or because she didn’t go out with that guy from her class. Maybe because her dad left, or her mum died, or she decided not to go to uni. Maybe it’s because of a combination of these, or something else entirely.
Molly’s played by Emma Bentley, who wrote the show along with Calum Finlay, and whose engaging performance quickly wins us over as she attempts to make sense of where she went wrong. Articulate, funny and resilient, Molly’s completely honest about her own lapses of judgment and the slow disintegration of her life – even before she ends up on the street in a thunderstorm, messaging a random guy on Tinder just to have somewhere to stay the night. While not solely a victim of circumstance, she also doesn’t do anything obviously wrong; she’s not a drug addict, or a criminal – she’s just like anyone else, and this relatability is both enjoyable and rather unsettling.
The Tinder scene is just one reference to technology in a show that makes frequent use of it. Images from Molly’s phone are projected on to a sheet at the back of Rasa Selemonavičiūtė’s set, and there’s inventive use made of a webcam to take us on a tour of the home that exists now only as a memory. Katharina Reinthaller’s production also introduces several other characters to the story through the use of audio clips, with which Molly interacts throughout the play. It’s an ambitious project, and not without an element of risk, but it pays off; the inclusion of these extra characters helps to build up a more complete picture of Molly’s life and relationships, and also emphasises her loneliness once all those voices fall silent.
Developed with the benefit of Emma Bentley’s volunteering experience at St Mungo’s, the play also has a feeling of authenticity, particularly when Molly starts sharing details about her current state of “purgatory”, as she waits to find out if she’ll get permanent housing or end up back on the street. In a series of short scenes, we also learn about the lengthy, repetitive bureaucratic process she had to go through just to get temporary accommodation. With her fate out of her hands, all she can do is wait and hope for the best.
What Goes On In Front Of Closed Doors clearly aims to make us think, but resists the temptation to preach or tell us what to do. Instead, by sharing one person’s story, the show invites us to process for ourselves the uncomfortable home truth at its heart: but for a different decision somewhere along the road, Molly could have been – and could still be – any one of us.
Theatre Things 