3 DIFFERENT HEAVENS
Theatre: Northern Light
Written by: Nathan Cuckow
Directed by: Trevor Schmidt
Starring: Blair Wensley, Coralie Cairns
Where: The Third Space, 11516 103rd St.
Running: Through March 9
Tickets: 471-1586 or Tix on the Square, 420-1757
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EDMONTON - Listen, when you grow up gay and Mormon (and in Calgary), with dreams of being onstage in New York, you know something first-hand about dramatic tension. And perhaps, too, about the sense of wonder and human possibility that informs even the grittiest of theatre.

"I'm still dumbfounded," Nathan Cuckow sighs happily of the developments whereby he and fellow playwright/actor Chris Craddock, perpetrators and stars of the world's first and only "gay rap opera," find themselves floating such mystical phrases as "American producers," "world rights," "replacement casts" and "limited runs." And there's the added delight whereby Cuckow finds himself simultaneously awaiting the premiere of his new play 3 Different Heavens at Northern Light Theatre on Friday.

As for the former, BASH'd! shouldered its way into the hyper-masculinized world of rap in 2006 with a couple of tough gay hip-hop artists, Feminem (Cuckow) and T-Bag (Craddock), and their Romeo and Romeo tale of star-cross'd lovers. It premiered at The Roost nightclub in downtown Edmonton in 2006. It swaggered and rhymed its way, and propelled its notion of gay machismo, through the Toronto, Winnipeg and New York Fringes last summer and on to the High Performance Rodeo in Calgary. Now, "without any of our local references changed," as Cuckow says with a note of awe in his voice, BASH'd! is slated for a guaranteed three-month off-Broadway run in June in one of a couple of possible Greenwich venues, the Barrow Street Theatre or fabled Studio 54.

Yes, New York audiences will finally hear the name Boyle, the Alberta town from whence Dylan arrives in the "big city," Edmonton, and meets his true love Jack. They will experience a Canuck gay wedding, complete with hors d'oeuvre anxiety. And they will learn something of the spike in hate crimes that attended our previous premier's military-style fulminations about using "every weapon in the arsenal" against gay marriage.

The New York producers (Stephen Kocis of Altar Boyz and Carl D. White of Naked Boys Singing!) used words like "challenging" and "provocative" for "things we'd take for granted; a gay marriage onstage, for example" says Cuckow. "They described the sexuality as 'in-your-face.' That kinda surprised us."

But then life is surprising, rich and complex for Cuckow at 30.

One of nine kids, he stopped going to church at 13, and took off for New York's Neighbourhood Playhouse at 18.
But the co-author of BASH'd! is also an amiable son who house-sits for his folks. He gallantly took his mom to a dinner theatre production of On Golden Pond last week. Which is about as far from the satire of his one-man show STANDupHOMO, or the raging aggression/ lush romanticism of BASH'd!, or the fury of 3...2...1, his previous collaboration with Craddock, as it's possible to get without actually doing theatre on the moon.

Cuckow's newest play 3 Different Heavens, named for a Mormon belief, would seem at first glance to be a striking departure in both tone and thrust. It focuses on two mothers -- one urban, liberal, secular, mouthy; the other rural, conservative, quiet, Mormon -- their two sons (played by the same two actors, but in reverse) and a dark secret. The mothers have unexpectedly become close friends. This is a mystery in itself, with "the same likelihood as a Palestinian and an Israeli striking up a friendship," as Cuckow says.

"Partisan politics segregate people ... but these two have agreed to disagree. It's not a conversion play. Nobody has to change their religious perspective."

This unjudgmental geniality in itself seems to set 3 Different Heavens apart from its predecessors, Cuckow concedes. But "there is a continuity; the plays are not unrelated," he's discovered. "STANDupHOMO (with its gay Mormon standup comic ) deconstructs religion and sexuality. 3...2...1 becomes a gay story. And sexuality, religion and politics are inextricably linked in BASH'd!, with its hate crime and fatal retaliation. In fact, Cuckow and Craddock have been nominated for a 2007 GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Award, to be announced at a New York gala on March 17.

The same themes are there, including "the knee-jerk homophobia of the Mormon mother" and her discomfort with sexuality. But the "fury and frustration" that have driven his work seem to have given way to a more expansive way of thinking.

3 Different Heavens, he says, is "about accepting people's differences, while being your authentic self. This isn't autobiographical in any way. But it's the most personal thing I've ever made."
lnicholls@thejournal.canwest.com