Waiting for Heathcliff

Press, 27 July 1988, Page 19

Waiting for Heathcliff

Sue McCauley’s new play, “Waiting For Heathcliff,”’ will have its first performance at the Court Theatre next Tuesday.

The play, by the author of “Other Halves,” takes as its pivot the unfinished romance.

John and Zee were lovers — almost — in a late teens romance. Twenty-five years on Zee is a successful film maker and speaker at a conference. Checking in at the motel she meets John, who is also speaking at the conference.

They arrange to have dinner and the past unfolds before them.

The past is recalled in flashbacks of their younger selves. David McKenzie and Lynda Milligan are John and Zee and Stephen Lovatt and Ruth Bijl, the younger selves.

Caroline Claver is directing this first staging of McCauley’s work. Sue McCauley is better known as a writer of books than plays. “Other Halves,” the autobiographical story of an affair between an older

woman and a Maori street kid, cemented her place in New Zealand writing. The story got wider exposure in a film. “Waiting for Heathcliff” will have a threeweek season from August 2 to 20 at the Court Two theatre.