House and Home: a new satire that re-examines ownership, Boomers and how you feel about rats.

It may just be me, but when I heard about Jenn Griffin’s newest play House and Home, Burt Bacharach‎‎ and Hal David’s heart wrenching ballad immediately got stuck in my head. Tackling topics like white privilege, capitalism and Vancouver’s real estate market, the show has all the potential of a true downer. Griffin, however, skillfully uses comedy to camouflage crises in a satire that has audiences cheering for invasive rodents by the end.

House and Home premiered at Firehall Arts Centre, and is loosely based on Griffin’s journey from poverty to home ownership. Like many Vancouver-based artists, Griffin has struggled to keep a roof above her head in Canada’s most expensive city, and was once homeless.

“But things changed and I was no longer the person getting evicted, or at the mercy of a terrible landlord, or having to live with a bad boyfriend,” explains Griffin. “There was this class shift of monumental proportions.”

In 2005, she and her partner scraped together enough money to buy a bungalow, and with the real estate boom found themselves owners of a vastly over-valued property. 

“I’m no longer writing into my marginalized status,” says Griffin, as personal experience has historically been her writing point of departure. “I’m writing this piece comedically, writing into my white privilege as part of the owning class.”

House and Home highlights the ways in which people can be owners, all while finding themselves out of control and completely dependent on others.  The audience is first introduced to the character Hilary (Jillian Fargey), just as the social worker is being put on stress leave over the phone. After her tenant of five years, Wren (Kimberly Ho) gives Hilary notice in the form of a crayon drawing, she and partner Henry (Andrew Wheeler) decide to enter the world of short term rentals. 

Griffin says she started conceptualizing the play in 2017, when she was asked to help clean her friends place ahead of them renting it out on Airbnb.

“It was hilarious to watch how organized they were in terms of leaving the entire house to these people to make all this money,” says Griffin. “And then they would move their entire family into a trailer up on their mom’s driveway.”

Before Henry and Hilary move into their car in order to rent out their entire house, the couple spends nearly $40,000 on renovating their shack into a pseudo-liveable yurt for Wren and her white, closeted girlfriend Marika (Darian Roussy) to rent. The decision was entirely Hilary’s, and a reaction to Wren breaking her leg thanks to the basement suite’s rat infestation, and Marika accusing her of being old and racist.

Jililan Fargey plays Hilary while Andrew Wheeler plays Henry in Jenn Griffin’s new play House and Home

“Theres this big ‘Okay, Boomer’ thing happening right now, and this play gives a platform for the generations to interact in a humorous way that's not so ridiculous that the boomer-ish part is just dismissible,” says Griffin. “Everyone comes forward with their valid arguments and their ignorance. The characters have depth.“

The rats have their own multi-dimensional role, and the infestation seems to be at the core of all the political confusions and obligations that pile up on the other eight characters.

Sebastien Archibald plays three different people, each of whom represent the consequences of capitalism. His performances were convincing, whether he was a recently housed impoverished man looking for a good loot, a smarmy realtor looking for sell outs, or a tech billionaire looking for Instagram-worthy experiences. More like-able, however, is Sam Bob’s character— the heart of gold “Pest Maven” who often brings his work back home to his co-op.

Griffin credits the actors for helping her create the show., which as a playwright she says she’s only 50 per cent responsible for.

“I wrote the recipe, but as you know a lot of things change in the kitchen. The imprint of the story comes from the actors, they have to make the cake.” 

Many of the show’s ingredients were perfectly measured—the digital screens splashing rising rent prices on a dystopic set, a character who’s on crutches for far longer than medically necessary, and the timing of Sam’s innocent but perpetual eavesdropping. Coupled with Wheeler’s showcase of flexibility during an epic Butoh performance, and some of the best drunk acting I’ve ever seen, the cast and crew of House and Home baked a perfect recipe. Yet audiences were forced to enjoy it in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where they’d exit the theatre surrounded by the desperate issues at the crux of the play.

Andrew Wheeler’s rousing Butoh performance as Henry in Jenn Griffin’s new play House and Home

“Comedy allows people to reflect back on themselves in the moment, whereas if you see a very good play about a terrible circumstance, the audience can leave feeling purged like they've actually done something,” says Griffin. “So I think with comedy you keep people awake and alive through the process. We have a situation on our hands that requires immediate attention.”

House and Home runs until January 25th. More information and tickets can be found on Firehall Arts Centre’s website.