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Regional Reviews: San Francisco An Exciting Production of Home Street Home Also see Jeanie's review of Show People
Home Street Home has been in development for years at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center. Fat Mike has composed an electric score and Richard Israel helms an engaging professional cast. They sing with lucidity and discrepancy and fully occupy their characters. The musical is reminiscence of Rent and Spring Awakening, with strongly melodic score. It's an adroitly developed score consisting of 29 songs sung by a multi-voiced professional ensemble of New York actors. The lyrics are about rape, misapplication, drug addiction, and a regime of extreme life but sometimes humorous. They are accompanied by a five-piece band led by David O on Caite Hevner Kemp's set of a combination of scaffolding and cyclone fencing. Home Street Home tells the story of a group of runaways who must navigate the perils of street life while trying to find their own place in the world. There is the story of Sue (Justine Magnusson), a teenage girl who runs away from home because her father who is constantly raping her. She finds acceptance with a bunch of street punks and they invite her to live in their mucky apartment. Living in what the residences call a Slut Hut, which is no better than an urban squat with no bathroom facilities, are an S & M lesbian couple Trashley (Lauren Patten) and Mom (Kristin Piacentile), a gay male prostitute (Kevin Hegmann), a wanna be songwriter (Matt Magnusson), and a 32-year-old man (Alex Robert Holmes) suffering from self-induced brain damage. They all get by through shoplifting, going into garbage bins to scrounge for food, and turning tricks. They spend all their money on pills and booze. There is simulated sex, especially between the gay male prostitute and his self-mocking trick Big John (Ryan O'Connor) and some simulated sex with whips and collars between the two lesbians. Home Street Home closed on March 7th at Z Space, 470 Florida Street, San Francisco. For more information, visit homestreethomeonstage.com.
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