Written by: Eugene O'Brien
Directed by: Kate Gaul
Mairead: Lucy Miller
Mal: Noel Hodda
Assistant Director: Romney Hamilton
Lighting Design: Topaz Marlay-Cole
Stage Manager: Caity Cowan
Dialect Coach: Carmen Lysiak
Social Media: Maddie withington
Production Shots: Alex Vaughan Photography
The Loading Dock Qtopia Sydney
14-31 May
HEAVEN is set in the Irish midlands, during the weekend of a local wedding. Mairead and Mal live ordinary lives.
Perhaps attending a wedding will help, or it might raise questions that are difficult to answer.
They run headlong into unresolved relationships, unrealised dreams, and a land of ‘what might have been?’ The play is delivered as a pair of criss-crossing monologues, which makes perfect sense for a couple exploring carnal hungers they could never share. A perfect marriage of inciteful, muscular character writing and nuanced, dynamic delivery from the two great actors - Lucy Miller and Noel Hodda -, makes HEAVEN a captivating experience.
O’ Brien keeps his crises simple. For Mairead it’s Breffni, an old flame with whom she still shares a sizzling sexual chemistry; a connection absent in her marriage. For Mal, it’s a confrontation with the homosexual urges sublimated for decades into sexual fantasies of Christ, stigmata and all. When his perfect ‘Jesus’ walks into the wedding venue, Mal starts making choices well outside the norm as a respected teacher.
HEAVEN an overwhelmingly compassionate portrait of marriage, brimming over with wit and pathos.
HEAVEN, produced by fishamble theatre debuted at the Dublin theatre festival in 2022, and completed a very successful run in the E59E theatre New York. Heaven was named best new play at the Irish Times theatre awards and won a fringe first at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe festival and played the Southark theatre in London and a sold out Irish tour in the spring of 2025.
‘beautiful, eloquent, and deeply satisfying theatre, full of humanity and truth…told with immense affection, candour, and brilliance’ ★★★★ - Scotsman
‘combines form and content to such devastatingly potent effect’ ★★★★★ - The Arts Desk
EUGENE O'BRIEN - PLAYWRIGHT
Eugene wrote the play EDEN which debuted at the peacock theatre in 2001 and transferred to the Abbey stage later that year and then onto the Arts Theatre in London’s West end in 2002. It has been translated into Romanian, Italian, Catalan, Dutch and German. EDEN received the Irish times theatre award, the Stewart Parker award and the Rooney prize for literature. HEAVEN, produced by fishamble theatre debuted at the Dublin theatre festival in 2022, and completed a very successful run in the E59E theatre New York. Heaven was named best new play at the Irish Times theatre awards and won a fringe first at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe festival and played the Southark theatre in London and a sold out Irish tour in the spring of 2025. Other Theatre work includes SAVOY produced in the Peacock Theatre and THE GOOD HOUSE OF HAPPINESS, ELIZA’S ADVENTURES IN THE UNCANNY VALLEY, MESPIL IN THE DARK, all in collaboration with PAN PAN theatre company.
Film and TV work includes the award winning Pure Mule and three feature films… EDEN, THE FLAG and TARRAC. Other work includes the THE NEST, SLOTH and NUMB all for RTE radio drama and an adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s Barrytown trilogy for BBC radio drama. Eugene’s novel GOING BACK was published by GILL in 2022.
Kate Gaul
Director
Carmen Lysiack
Dialect Coach
Lucy Miller
Mairead
Topaz Marlay-Cole
Lighting Designer
Noel Hodda
Mal
Caity Cowan
Stage Manager
Romney Hamilton
Assistant director
Maddie Withington
Social Media
'Heaven' by Eugene O'Brien
Directed by Kate Gaul
14-31 May
The Loading Dock, Qtopia
On the weekend of a wedding in rural Ireland, Mal and Mairead’s marriage is quietly crumbling.
For Mal, a buried queer desire, once repressed in favour of a "normal" life, suddenly resurfaces when a Christlike young man reignites his forbidden fantasies. For Mairead, a fiery, tough-as-nails woman who married Mal to escape her own reckless romantic past, the weekend throws her face-to-face with the one who got away—the man who still holds a piece of her heart.
As both grapple with the choices that led them here, O’Brien’s Heaven becomes a raw, sensual examination of what it means to truly live. For anyone who’s ever felt trapped in a role they never asked for, this play pulses with the intensity of repressed desire and unfulfilled dreams. Whether you're questioning the road you’ve taken, or yearning to break free, Heaven is a fierce, funny, and heart-wrenching exploration of identity, regret, and the lives we secretly long for.
Winner of the 2023 Irish Times Award for Best New Play, this daring and critically acclaimed play is a must-see for anyone who’s ever questioned the path not taken. Love, lust and liberation collide on a night that will change everything.
REVIEWS
2023 A HIT IN DUBLIN, NEW YORK, AND EDINBURGH
2023 WINNER IRISH TIMES AWARD FOR BEST NEW PLAY
WINNER IRISH TIMES AWARD FOR BEST ACTRESS
WINNER SCOTSMAN FRINGE FIRST AWARD
‘Beautiful, eloquent, and deeply satisfying theatre, full of humanity and truth…told with immense affection, candour, and brilliance’ ★★★★ - Scotsman
‘Funny, bittersweet, and exquisitely written.’ ★★★★ - Guardian
‘An overwhelmingly compassionate portrait of marriage, brimming over with wit & pathos.’ Fest Mag
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Rehearsal images: Alex Vaughgan photography
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Rehearsal photos: Alex Vaughan photography
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Rehearsal shots
