Home Sweet Home: Behind the scenes at the theatre project led by people with disabilities

Suisha Inclusive Arts’ ten-year anniversary production at Cork Midsummer Festival tackles issues of housing, independent living and disability rights head on, writes Ellie O’Byrne

Tue, 11 Jun, 2024 - 02:00

Ellie O’Byrne

It’s a point in the not-too-distant future; we’re not sure when, but a new government has just been voted into power in Ireland and it is planning on taking away hard-won independent living opportunities from people with disabilities.

A group of young artists in a house-share decide to fight back and form their own protest movement.

This may, in light of the ongoing housing crisis and last year’s protests over Department of Social Protection plans to introduce a tiered system of disability payments similar to Britain’s controversial “work capability assessment”, seem chillingly real and particularly close to the bone during an election.

But it’s actually the plot of a play that has been over two years in the making: Home Sweet Home, staged as part of Cork Midsummer Festival, is a disability-led production that sees the participants of Suisha Inclusive Arts team up with playwright Jodie O’Neill, and freelance director Al Bellamy, that will be performed within a week of the local and European elections, purely by chance.

“It took me a long time to realise that what we were doing, which was making a play that actively criticises a fictional government, but a government, and makes room for people to be heard, in the month of an election, is quite radical,” Bellamy says.

“Something really hit for the group. Something about social justice. That there’s more we can ask for, and that we’re a bit fed up, actually. I wasn’t expecting us to go so political.”

The kernel of the idea for Home Sweet Home came as part of Bellamy’s process with Suisha performers. At the start of each session, the Wexford-born, Dublin-based director would check in with each member of cast and crew, and as part of this, would ask a playful question to get the theatre-making cogs in gear.

“I think I asked something like, ‘what is your dream future in 15 years’ time?’ And one of our participants, Jason Buckley, said, ‘in a mansion with all of these people and a pool and a limousine, and we live independently’. That was the idea that made the play. We did a few scenes of it in the Firkin Crane as a work-in-progress last year for Cork Midsummer, and it sold out so fast and there were so many people there.”

Everyone involved wanted to see the project through to a full production, and an Arts Council Participation Award, announced this March, made it happen.

The result, Bellamy says, is “a protest quilt. Each person has brought their own experiences and ideas to it, and stitched their own patch, and it’s been stitched together to create something in service of something greater than itself.”

Home Sweet Home has been so much more than the standard production of a play.

As well as being entirely produced by a team with conditions ranging from Down syndrome to autism, including writer Jodie O’Neill, who received an adult autism diagnosis at 39, and Bellamy, who self-describes as “neurodiverse” while preferring not to publicly share a diagnosis, the two-year project has included workshops and mentorships with a view to Suisha performers to find professional positions within theatre.

Learning the ropes of theatre-making, in everything from set and sound design to costume design, it is hoped, will lead to jobs.

“An essential part of this project is that this group of people should be working afterwards,” Bellamy says. “They are really enthusiastic workers, and quite honest and open in a way that is quite refreshing in the industry. They can only be a benefit to the industry. Hopefully, at the end of this, we will end up not only with a group of really good actors, but also people who are either shadowing or working professionally as assistants to designers. I’d certainly hire them.”

Suisha Inclusive Arts has been promoting inclusion of people with disabilities and building partnerships with arts groups in the community for 10 years now, and Bellamy says it is “massive” to help celebrate Suisha’s 10th anniversary by bringing Home Sweet Home to the stage.

“The work they’ve been doing in Suisha is just really, really impressive, and a very refreshing thing to see. The group I work with are so passionate about Suisha and what it can do.”

Home Sweet Home is a 50 minute relaxed performance with audio description, captioning and Irish Sign Language interpretation. It runs from June 12-15 in the Granary Theatre.