Oxford is one of the homeless capitals of the UK.
Wealthy, liberal, and beautiful, it’s surely the best place to be homeless in the country, but this leads to a bizarre concoction of the privileged and the destitute. The students and academics close to the top of British society interact on a daily basis with those at the rock bottom. Bright young things experiencing the time of their lives are placed side-by-side with people suffering from long-term mental breakdowns, abuse, and drug addiction.
There’s nothing wrong with this, but you must admit, it is strange. One side of the city worries about having to pull an all-nighter writing essays, and another worries about pulling an entirely different kind of all-nighter on the streets. And there are similarities, too: individuals of both sides regularly use and abuse alcohol and drugs.
Vagrant is a play that makes its audience think about how we should respond to this issue, if we should at all. It follows the story of Lara, an irritatingly high minded liberal in her final year. She intentionally decides to become homeless just before her finals out of moral irritation and – perhaps – deeper emotional wounds. She arrives in a squat, and her journey begins.
It isn’t didactic and is concerned, above all, with the human suffering that is inescapably tied to homelessness.
My ideas for the play are based on my past experiences spent speaking to homeless people in Oxford, and the play tries to achieve a raw and direct feel using fictional verbatim monologues. The thing I enjoyed most while writing Vagrant was trying to capture the rhythm of homeless people’s speech. It was a huge challenge, as their vernacular is completely removed from my frame of reference. But it was fascinating too – where else have you been thanked or even blessed by a homeless person after apologising for not giving them money?
It also deals with students’ lives – our own lives – and for this reason I can’t wait to see how audiences respond to it. The two student characters in the play, despite being on very opposing ends of the political spectrum, are people I hope an audience will be able to match to their peers.
But you’ll have to come and see it if you want to find out.
