When fifteen-year-old Angela (Jessica Clarke) is killed in a road accident, fellow high-school students Max, Stewart and Sally hold a séance to bring her back.
They don’t really expect this to work, or that the repercussions of these actions will irrevocably change all their lives. It might sound like the premise of a teen horror movie, but Heaven is a thoughtful, sad and funny play that explores mortality, morality, identity and the messy business of growing up.
Writer/director Kit Brookman is sharply attuned to schoolyard politics, its cruelties and constantly shifting allegiances, especially between boys. At the centre of the play is Max, appealingly portrayed by Andre Jewson: sensitive and basically decent, but lured into betraying his friendship with the ‘weird’ Sally (Sarah Ogden) to get onside with crude, insecure bully Stewart (Lachlan Woods).
On opening night Woods was initially stiff and unconvincing, but relaxed into his character as time went on. Jessica Clarke has a difficult task as the ethereal Angela, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that her performance is less naturalistic and more repetitive than the rest of the cast, however her bewilderment and fragility are affecting. The standout creation is Ogden’s Sally: intelligent, tough and sassy, but deeply reflective and easily hurt. Ogden turns what could easily have been a supporting role into the moral centre of the play, and adroitly manages the script’s shifts in tone from adolescent banter to poetic contemplation.
While as a director Kit Brookman has an obvious facility for bringing out emotion and rapport in his cast, his blocking of scenes is sometimes less inspired, with actors completely static during quite long exchanges. Special mention must go to composer Tom Hogan’s eerie guitar-and-synthesiser score, which unobtrusively underpins the play’s melancholy moments.
An elegy for lost innocence, Heaven is nonetheless ultimately hopeful about our ability, if not to learn from our mistakes, then at least to survive them and endure. Quirky and surprising, it brings a light touch to life’s most profound questions.
Rated: 3.5
Heaven
Venue: La Mama – Level 1, 205 Faraday St, Carlton
Dates: 23 May-June 2
Writer/director: Kit Brookman
Starring: Jessica Clarke, Andre Jewson, Sarah Ogden and Lachlan Woods
Composition/sound design: Tom Hogan
Lighting design: Richard Vabre
Stage manager: Rita Verocchi
