Home Sweet Home ****

Have you got a home for me?”

To say there is a housing crisis is something of an understatement, with successive governments proving unwilling or unable to reverse a generationally disturbing trend. Rents have spiralled beyond affordability, especially in city centres, and ownership is a distant dream for many.

Resentment has grown towards the wealth divide and the damage to communities caused by short-term holiday-let platforms, subduing an entire generation. Which brings us to Home Sweet Home, Miriam Cappa’s autobiographical tale. The crisis here is not that of the UK, however – instead, we find ourselves in Rome, where our protagonist is house hunting.

She takes the stage tentatively, dragging a tattered suitcase that appears to hold her worldly possessions, her silent uncertainty speaking volumes. She delivers an adaptation of Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy, plaintively seeking a home while leaning into the wealth divide fuelled by the crisis.

The production is frequently interrupted by telephone calls from lettings agents. In Italy, the gulf between the haves and the have-nots is accentuated by employment status; some people have lifetime job contracts, whose guaranteed income is especially favoured by landlords. Those on the periphery become de facto second-class applicants. She receives a call with a promising lead, only for the apartment to be rented in real time.

She is advised that house hunting is a full-time activity, but as a trained actor she must work interminably long hours as a waitress – not to mention applying for and attending auditions.

She imagines seducing a landlord and creates a tasteful burlesque, including a swirl of flamenco-style dancing. Her Lecoq training is evident, as she displays her comedy, clowning, puppetry, drama, dance and mime repertoire gracefully and magnetically, gliding around the stage. Her face conveys a plethora of emotions quite beautifully.

Cappa’s relentless optimism and perseverance are severely tested by constant rejection, which could all too easily take their toll on her mental health. She resists her family’s overtures to return, determined to forge her own independent path.

Such is the scarcity of available housing that success is often achieved only through personal contacts, indicative of a broken and possibly corrupt system. Cappa’s tentative enquiry – “have you got a home for me?” – becomes an increasingly desperate mantra. Precisely which country or city the search takes place in is almost academic; the theme of Cappa’s frustrating quest for sanctuary will be hauntingly familiar across much of the world.