Hotels are not homes, no matter how hard they try. They might imitate the comfort of a home, synthesise the idea and aesthetic, but there is always something missing – a sense of dislocation, and the lingering idea that any roots put down here might wither by the time you return.
It is fitting then, that Song From Far Away – HOME’s revival of Simon Stephens and Mark Eitzel’s 2015 ambient monologue musical – takes place entirely within the confines of a suite. Delivered by Will Young’s Willem – a nomadic, New York-based banker called home to Amsterdam following the sudden death of his brother – this dislocation, both geographic and emotional, hangs over everything.
In Amsterdam, Willem meets with old friends, spends time with his family and writes a series of letters to his late sibling Pauli, but it is only in the latter he finds himself free of miscommunication and misunderstanding. For Willem, connecting with the people and places around him is near impossible, regardless of whether they are intrinsic parts of this so-called ‘home’ or just passing details.
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In this central and only role, Young cuts a distinctive figure - think knackered Andy Warhol meets fading Gen X Iconoclast – but the best actors are those who become near-unrecognisable whilst bringing a degree of familiarity to the stage, and in this first theatre role in over a decade, Young takes on a heavy load.
Having lost his own twin brother to suicide in 2020, the pain is still fresh, channelled here into a performance that oscillates between intensity and introspection, charged with subtleties and statements alike. A nervous, near-hidden tap on the knee gives way to a desperate shout into the void Pauli has left behind.
Set against the manufactured comfort of the hotel room, Song from Far Away is supported by exceptional staging and Kirk Jameson’s creative direction. The shifting cinematic ceiling lowers and rises to imitate the simultaneous claustrophobia and expansive loneliness of grief, whilst a glimpse of snowfall in the darkness beyond the penthouse window provides a sublime moment of impressive scale.
This duality – small, considered moments of intimacy offset by the sheer size of a world left behind – forms the show’s core, and complements a script that deals with both the minutiae of modern living (a date with a former lover that doesn’t go to plan) and much larger themes (metropolitan alienation, the procession march of death) all of which have been weaved deftly together.
The song of the title is composed with similar shifting scales in mind – hinted at first with snatches of melody and ghostly hums, then building throughout and developed in tandem with the emotional realisation that Willem’s brother is not coming back and never will. It all culminates with a final composition of gentle longing that plays us out into the night, stripped of the pomp and pretence that can blemish even the finest theatre songs.
As such, Song From Far Away is perhaps best considered as a sort of ambient musical - one that drifts between dream and waking life, remembrance and reality, much like the plumes of formless smoke that creep out from the corners and out over the audience, carrying this finely tuned atmosphere with it.
Dealing in the transience and liminality of airport lounges, cafes, hotels and the nomadic search for somewhere and someone for Willem to call his own, the hour and twenty minute running time infuses what could have been a fleeting visit with the emotional weight of plays double its length.
And where one man shows are herculean tasks at the best of times this revival hits all the right notes, never overstaying its welcome, regardless of an engaged HOME audience who would have permitted it to stay as long as it liked.
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