'I forgot I was in my own house': The theatre plays being performed in private homes

“Stage door”, it says. The audience is directed by another paper sign around the back, past the garage and into the garden.

Glass doors connect the garden, where Phil and Mairi are pouring drinks for their friends, to their kitchen, which is, for one evening only, to be transformed into a theatre for a performance by an actor from the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh.

The Wilsons are among around 30 Edinburgh households who have opened up their living rooms, kitchens and spare rooms for Lyceum at Home, an initiative to bring theatre into the community.

Part of the Lyceum’s 60th anniversary celebrations, Lyceum at Home has seen the creation of four new short plays inspired by Edinburgh, penned by writers Isla Cowan, Alexander McCall Smith, Apphia Campbell and Stephen Greenhorn.

The four works are being performed in a mix of private homes, as well as community venues such as care homes and prisons.

In Gilmerton, the kitchen table has been pushed to one side and space cleared for the 15-strong audience - all members of Edinburgh amateur theatre group Leitheatre - who have brought camping chairs and stools to watch the 30 minute performance.

Director Shilpa T-Hyland is standing in the wings - aka the Wilsons’ hallway - waiting for the play to start. Katrina Allen, who plays tour guide Cara in Ms Cowan’s play, The Sights, has used the couple’s downstairs bathroom as a dressing room.

“We had our first performance yesterday and I didn’t know what to expect,” Ms T-Hyland says. “But it’s been really magical.”

The previous day, Ms T-Hyland and Ms Allen had held two performances, one in a grand New Town drawing room, another at an assisted living facility. They will hold another five over the coming week, with the last one taking place in a converted church.

“This one is more comparable to my house than anything we’ve done so far, so it feels very homely,” says Ms T-Hyland.

“There are a lot of different things to think about wherever we go. In the play, Kat holds a mug for part of it and we were originally going to make tea to go in it, then we were worried about people’s carpets. Luckily tonight, we’re in a kitchen, but that’s not always the case.”

Ms Wilson says she had wanted to apply for the project as soon as she had read about it online. Organisers aimed to hold a performance in homes across all 17 wards of the city of Edinburgh.

“We love theatre,” she says. “Everyone here tonight has been brought together by theatre, but as well as that being the thing that unites us, we’re all really good friends, so having theatre actually in my house, with my friends here, is just perfect.”

Mr Wilson adds: “I loved it, I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was amazing. After five minutes, I just forgot I was in my own house.”

Unlike a normal stage - or indeed, the Lyceum itself, where all four of the plays are to be performed together over three days next week - there is no technical set up. When Ms Allen bursts into the room in character, there are no dazzling stage lights separating her from the audience. Instead, she can clearly see everyone’s reactions.

“It is very different,” she says. “On stage, you can hide. But here, I feel like I’m tailoring the performances around what the audience wants, how they’re reacting and usually, you can’t see that. Shilpa said to me to just act as if I’m speaking to my best friends.”

She adds: “It’s a real experience, performing in people’s homes, each one is so different. The first one we did was in a typical New Town town house and there was a lot of stuff in the living room, I realised how easy it was to get distracted by something on the wall. Here, in the kitchen, it feels more intimate.”

Ruari Johnson was sitting in the front row, less than a metre from the action.

“It was an emotional play and that was quite intense, given the set up,” he said. “It’s the fact we’re sitting right there in her eyeline. Usually, the actor can’t see if someone is getting emotional, or being affected by the play, but here, it could really have an impact.”

Becca Rudd, sitting next to him, agreed. “It felt more heightened than you get in a typical theatre experience,” she said. “Everything was much more exposing and felt so much more personal.”

Ms Allen admits being able to interact with the audience has become a key part of her performance.

“Yesterday, there was one person who was very vocal,” she says. “They reacted to everything that happened and I used that. I said to them afterwards, ‘I really had fun playing with you during that performance.’

“It will be different when we’re in the Lyceum, because we won’t have that.”

Lewis Baird said the performance had reminded him of childhood shows.

“Seeing a play in a room like this almost reminded me of when you’re a child and you’re putting on a show with your friends or your cousins for your grandparents,” he said. “It had that same whimsical feel. But the difference was that the quality of the play and the level of storytelling was so high.”

Speaking at the press launch of the Lyceum’s new season’s programme earlier this week, artistic director James Brining said he had watched rehearsals for Lyceum at Home - which were held in a small office space in a bid to recreate the conditions the actors would perform in in private homes.

“I saw a run-through in one of the offices in the rehearsal rooms and Graham Mackay-Bruce, who is the actor performing Alexander McCall-Smith's piece, looked terrified,” said Mr Brining, who brought the idea to the theatre after holding a similar initiative when he headed up the Leeds Playhouse.

“He was terrified because he had to go into a room, with other people who inhabit that space and perform a role, which is really different. The rehearsals I saw were fantastic and I'm excited about the project."