The stage of the Roslyn Packer Theatre is bare, dark and empty. A man in jeans and a white t-shirt lazily drags a portable floodlight onto the stage, trailing a long extension cord behind him. Soon Geoff Sobelle, the creator of HOME – which comes to the Sydney Festival following performances at the 2017 Fringe Festival in Philadelphia (where it premiered) and more recently the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the 2018 Brisbane Festival – is affixing a plastic sheet to a timber frame with a staple gun. It’s a gradual process that, like much of this show, is captivating – almost hypnotic – in the simple way that it unfolds.

HOME at Sydney Festival. Photo © Victor Frankowski

The timber frame becomes a screen which allows for some deft stage magic, with a dream-like series of vignettes drawing the audience into the intimate, domestic world of the show, first a bedroom and then a more elaborate two-storey structure that includes kitchen, living room, bedroom, study and bathroom. Sobelle was inspired to create HOME after discovering the stratified layers of flooring that had accumulated in the kitchen of his 100-year-old house in Philadelphia, laid...