East Midlands Theatre makes its debut venture to Southwark Playhouse, in order to see Fishamble’s Heaven. The small London venue’s wooden chairs and industrial aesthetics acted as a launch pad and incubator for the brilliant musical Operation Mincemeat, which is now a West End hit.
Heaven comes to the theatre already acclaimed, with an Irish Times Award for Best New Play, another for Best Actress, and a coveted Scotsman Fringe First Award from its run at Edinburgh.
Heaven’s two characters are a middle-aged Irish couple, Mairead and Mal, who are returning to the wife’s hometown for a wedding. The play is composed of monologues given by each character in turn. This is a brave choice. It is legendarily difficult to make compelling theatre out of monologues, in place of interaction. Perhaps the intention was to demonstrate the couple’s emotional estrangement, but, while watching, I can’t help hoping that the next scene would bring the energy of dialogue instead of the reflection of monologue. It never does.
That said, both actors give compelling performances. They are able to physically and vocally inhabit different emotions and the different characters whose speech they report, and they show both subtlety and clarity. Janet Moran, as Mairead, tells us a lot about her relationship with her different former lovers merely by the varied tones in which she lists their names. Andrew Bennett as Mal provides the highlight of the show by giving a suspiciously fast and intense account of the way in which the cocaine he had taken had not affected him.
With a sparse set, the lighting does a lot of work, lending variety and a sense of progress to the piece by allowing the actors to move between different spaces which are delineated by illumination and also the lack of it.
The content is not groundbreaking. Irish playwright Eugene O’Brien’s characters, in his play Heaven, exist through situations that are often depicted in Irish literature and discourse. Mairead, in her youth, had to travel to England for an abortion. Mal is a repressed homosexual, who suppressed his desires because he felt they would not fit in with the life he wanted to lead. He was educated by priests, but gives the familiar disclaimer – they were not those kind of priests. The play is lent individuality, however, as he describes his childhood fantasy of intercourse with Jesus, whom he saw on crosses at Church. He wanted to be, in the apt words of the prayer, “through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”
Heaven does not fall into the trap that many monologue driven pieces do of lacking momentum. The characters’ arcs develop as they encounter potential lovers and change. The end is unclear however, and a little unsatisfying. Overall, though, this piece does well with a difficult form. Directed by Jim Culleton, Heaven is well worth a look!
Heaven runs at Southwark Playhouse until 22nd February
Photo credit Ste Murray
