“Lucy Miller and Noel Hodda bring life, charm and warmth to Mairead and Mal but it is director Kate Jane Gaul’s careful styling of pace and tone of this challenging script which pulls it together and overrides the inherent dramatic conflict issues. “
Kate Stratford
4 Stars
Venue: QTOPIA (Darlinghurst)
Sydney
Dates: May 14-31st 2025
There is a wedding. This will bring people who have known each other and those who have never met together for an alcohol fueled weekend of memories, secrets, regrets and uninhibited behaviour. In this case, it is Mairead and Mal’s twenty-year marriage and their hidden sexuality which will be challenged by the past and the new. Eugene O’Brien uses this trope of a wedding to explore how Mairead and Mal have designed a marriage which fits into societal expectations; all the while hiding from each other their sexuality and need for personal fulfillment.
O’Brien’s Heaven‘s structure is emblematic of their marriage. In a series of alternating monologues, Mairead and Mal take us through their respective experience of the weekend; yet never interact. They share their passions and longings with the audience but never each other. They do not connect, and remain ignorant of each other’s inner life. Yet we feel for them. Mairead’s feistiness, Mal quiet charm. There is gentle humour and a soft sadness.
But in choosing this structure, O’Brien has created dramatic technique problems for the three stars of this show. For there are three stars. Lucy Miller and Noel Hodda bring life, charm and warmth to Mairead and Mal but it is director Kate Gaul’s careful styling of pace and tone of this challenging script which pulls it together and overrides the inherent dramatic conflict issues.
The core conflict is Mairead and Mal’s sexuality and its incompatibility. Mairead has an earthy, raw thirst for heterosexual sex – a desire which can only be slaked by a past lover. Mal desperately longs for the sexual embrace of Jesus, something he has kept closeted for forty years. That neither knows this is even a conflict is the gentle tragedy of the play. That both continue to move through life as best friends is their redeeming grace.
It is a simple set, evoking notions of a wedding and Topaz Marlay-Cole’s lighting design provides subtle support for the emotional shifts. The theatre at Qtopia provides a lovely, intimate space to explore such a touching, intimate idea.
photo by Alex Vaughn
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
