Share House: The Musical, Reviewed by a Share House Researcher

Updated: 23 May 2024

Zoë Goodall  

Housing policy researcher - Housing justice for renters, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

Email: zgoodall@swin.edu.au

In a land where the Australian Federal Budget devoted an entire chapter to the housing crisis, where you seemingly can’t have a night out without the conversation turning to housing problems, and where share housing is frequently in the news, it’s perhaps no surprise that the new Melbourne musical theatre production Share House: The Musical pretty much sold out its five performances last week.

As someone who’s experienced share housing in Melbourne and is currently writing a PhD on the subject – and is a big musical theatre fan – this is a show I was decidedly looking forward to seeing. Written by Jude Perl, Brendan Tsui and Desiree Munro, and starring Perl as the main character, Share House delivers an immensely funny portrait of Australian millennial share house life. While the songs (written by Perl and Tsui) are mainly upbeat, the show also digs deep into themes of anxiety, toxic friendships, and the emotional intensity that can occur when you live with non-family. The title may bring to mind another musical about housing stress – Jonathan Larson’s smash hit Rent – but Share House is less concerned with representing a generation or subculture, and more interested in telling a story of one particular household. Judging from the audience’s frequent laughs and standing ovation, it was a story relatable to many.

Share House centres on Lucy (Perl) and her housemate Jane (Isabelle Davis), who have been friends since primary school, although the friendship has become rotted by Jane’s criticisms and negativity. When Lucy receives a housemate application from Alice (Anita Mei La Terra), a woman so full of sunshine that cleaning the toilet makes her happy, it reconfigures the household and sparks a reckoning in Lucy and Jane’s relationship. To this end, Share House is arguably more about friendship than housing – what we deserve from our friendships, how they change over time, and whether they should be abandoned or saved.

But isn’t this the way with housing? Even when it’s not a central concern, it’s always there in the background, affecting everything else we do in our lives. The central friendship and its tensions are moulded by Lucy and Jane’s housing situation, their struggles inseparable from how they live together.

Housing conditions, housing aspirations, and housing affordability are constant themes of this show. The opening song, ‘Share House’, both praises and curses living in a share house at age 35, with a recognition that living otherwise isn’t affordable. ‘It’s not sad, it’s practical … It’s not sad, it’s financially responsible!’ Lucy sings defensively. At one point, Lucy and Jane see on social media that friends of theirs bought a house in Preston and wonder how on earth they could afford it. And the house, although invisible to the audience, is constantly described in terms of inadequacy: the toilet is broken, the only heater is in the kitchen.

Furthermore, in the tradition of musical theatre, there’s an ‘I want’ song where the protagonist sings of their dreams. In Share House, the song is ‘One Bedroom Apartment’, where Lucy longs for a place of her own, with more privacy and without the risk of housemates leaving. But the humour comes from her low expectations – ‘8.5 square metres’ – and her recognition that, in Australia, a one bedroom apartment is no guarantee of housing quality: ‘just a thin sheet of drywall keeps your neighbours at bay’. It’s a damning indictment of the Australian housing system, dressed up in song, as Lucy whispers hopefully, ‘If I could get a one – no, two year lease…’ While making the audience laugh, the song conveys how the bare minimum of security and housing standards is a dream for so many renters.

I’ve previously written about the way media often positions share housing as an obstacle to ‘growing up’. In films such as Animals (2019) and Frances Ha (2012), young people may have enjoyable share housing experiences, but in the end their maturation is marked by getting a place of their own. These happy endings suggest the protagonist has acquired enough money to afford renting alone. It’s interesting to observe the recent influx of Australian media about share housing and the housing crisis more broadly – and more so, that they have shied away from this narrative of sudden prosperity and improved housing. Perhaps the assumption is that the audience would find such endings too convenient and unrealistic in today’s housing market. The SBS film Time to Buy (2022) (also a musical!), about a couple who decide to quit share housing and buy their own home, ends with the couple defeated, lamenting that maybe they’ll be able to afford a house after their parents die. Evicted: A Modern Romance (2023) has the protagonists opt out of the housing market altogether, deciding to buy a van and go travelling rather than continue to struggle with renting.

Share House takes a different approach, with Lucy deciding that share housing with Jane and Alice is where she wants to be after they air their grievances and work through their problems. The harmony of ‘One Bedroom Apartment’ is reprised with the lyrics changed to ‘three bedroom share house’, acknowledging that Lucy’s dream has been readjusted to where she is now. It’s a happy ending, without nihilism, but the housing conditions remain unchanged: presumably the toilet is still broken and the heating inadequate.

The implication is that this is the best you can hope for in Australia’s housing system: the dwelling quality may be subpar, and the housing policies unhelpful, but you can get through it if you have good relationships with the people you live with. In this way, Share House: The Musical is a perfect representation of how so many of us cling to individualised solutions to the housing crisis, waiting for systemic change that may or may not come.

The soundtrack to Share House: The Musical is available on Spotify.