Nathan Cuckow's 3 Different Heavens is a heartfelt cry for understanding. Although it has some dramatic problems, it is also a considerably more complex play than is apparent at first glance.

Cuckow has artfully constructed four interwoven lives. We meet two very different mothers, Joyce (Blair Wensley), a proper Mormon wife and Susan (Coralie Cairns), a free-living, much married lush. The same actresses play their sons (only in reverse) - David, a gay player and Jonathan, a "fricken Mormon missionary virgin" who is, at last, coming to terms with his homosexual sexuality.

This Northern Light Theatre production benefits from Trevor Schmidt's sensitive direction and quite remarkable performances from the two-person cast.

The play begins with the two moms putting on a production of their son's lives for us. This permits Cuckow to trot out a technique he has used to great advantage in his earlier productions of 3.2.1 and BASH'd. The performers break down the fourth wall to talk to the audience and even to work out production details. It is a tricky technique, easily falling into cuteness, but the two performers make it all funny and easy to believe.

Seamlessly switching from parent to sibling, the two tell how the sons meet at an Edmonton gay club. The play goes into some detail about how they establish their relationship and how it nearly unravels. This is not a play about conversion. The Mormon cannot abandon his beliefs - he feels his love for a man is a terrible sin and he will be excommunicated for it.

Nor can he tell his straitlaced parents, which leaves his partner feeling that their professed love stands for nothing.
The complex, changing relationships and the constant shifting of characters require some keeping up but Cuckow and cast mostly manage it well. There is a tangled moral battle being fought out here in the no-man's land between sexuality and religion leaving at least one audience member working out the ethical complexities hours later.

There are problems with the evening. The relationship between the two sons is not overly interesting. It follows a predictable path and the two often seem more like dramatic constructs than real people. There is a history of the Mormon religion (with slides) that adds little dramatically.

A long scene where the Mormon mother undergoes a demeaning, mean-spirited, drunken tirade against her beliefs sounds a bit like Cuckow (a fallen away Mormon himself) is working out a few issues of his own.

Overall, the play lacks the emotional wallop of Cuckow's (and Chris Craddock's) BASH'd.

3 Different Heavens (referring to a Mormon belief about the afterlife) works splendidly in the unlikely friendship of the two women. They are so very different but forge a believable, sympathetic and finally quite touching relationship on the rocky road to understanding and final acceptance.

Cairns and Wensley perform with a fierce and committed intensity.

Three Suns out of five.