Heaven allows the performers to exercise their storyteller skills
First having opened at the Dublin Theatre Festival back in 2022, followed by tours and runs in 2023 that took it from Ireland to Edinburgh and New York, Fishamble: The New Play Company’s Heaven comes to the Southwark Playhouse for a short run before heading back up to Edinburgh and another tour of Ireland, writes Christopher Peacock.
Having won an Olivier award back in 2016 and toured all over, Fishamble certainly handle new Irish writing well and have a great stock of work to go to when they want. Such as Heaven, written by Eugene O’Brien, a two-hander about a married couple heading back to county Offaly to attend a wedding.
Mairead and Mal, are in a stale but otherwise perfectly happy marriage. As the wedding day unfolds we get to hear their perspectives of the events of the day and then how their evenings head in different directions. Heaven is incredibly efficient in its storytelling. O’Brien is economic in writing this tale for two but it is so deftly handled nothing is missing.
A show as a series of monologues can get stagnant in style and bogged down in exposition. Thankfully here the characters of Mal and Mairead poured out of the script fully fledged in front of us. You were never left feeling like you were being dragged through the plot as Jim Culleton’s direction works well in keeping things moving.
With little set pieces or action on stage it is left to the performers to keep the energy up and everyone engaged. With Andrew Bennett and Janet Moran in the roles this was never in doubt. Both with excellent, charming and witty performances they draw out all of the humour and unease their characters go through on the night. As Mal and Mairead toil in the decisions they make, the secrets they wish to keep and the personal truths they have long wanted to suppress, both Bennet and Moran hold a lovely line.
Writing a play with an Irish wedding at the heart of the action certainly leaves open many avenues for the drama to go down. What Heaven does brilliantly is not to run away with any obvious clichéd potential storylines from its Irish wedding setup. O’Brien lightly weaves in many cultural touch points and details, which you could tell hit home for many of those of the Irish diaspora in the room. Heaven allows the performers to exercise their storyteller skills in this simplest of forms.
Southwark Playhouse Borough, 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD until February 22nd.
Full Details and Booking: www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/heaven
