This Heaven at Belvoir St Theatre

Sometimes you need to push.

Sissy Gordon’s father died in custody at Mount Druitt Police Station. The cops got a fine, Sissy’s family got $9,000 and noone is allowed to speak about it. Sissy is about to become a lawyer but tonight lawyers and the law are beside the point. Tonight the night is dirty and heavy, and the moon is swollen and bright. Everyone knows that on nights like this things happen.

Nakkiah Lui’s This Heaven is about a family who find themselves at a flash point of oppression, loss, love and anger. Lui turns the streets and parks of Mount Druitt into a fierce public forum where the essential matters of what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad are up for grabs. At the centre of it is the question: does doing nothing make you as complicit as the perpetrators?

Lui grew up in the Mount Druitt Aboriginal community. This Heaven is her first play. In the time she wrote it she was an associate playwright at Belvoir, she won the inaugural Dreaming Award and she was finishing her law degree. This Heaven is about balancing worlds.