The Forbidden Love Of Rachel Gordon

Australian television actress, Rachel Gordon will star in a witty and racy new play about a love triangle shared between three women.

She has been in some of Australia’s most loved television shows, including ‘All Saints’, ‘Home and Away’, ‘Blue Heelers’, ‘Neighbours’ and most recently ‘The Moodys’, but for Rachel Gordon, it is her role as Claire in the upcoming play ‘Boston Marriage’ that has got her really excited. “I'm really looking forward to getting up to Queensland and doing a big show with Amanda [Muggleton]. I've never done one with her before. In terms of theatrical geniuses, I think she is one of Australia's greatest. It is a real honor for me to be working with her.”

© Stephen Henry

Like Rachel, Amanda Muggleton has had an impressive career, playing the lead role of ‘Chrissie Latham’ in the iconic Australian series ‘Prisoner', and has won awards in for her theatrical work.

Scripted by Pulitzer award-winning American playwright, David Mamet, whose remarkable writing resume includes ‘Glengarry Glen Rose’, ‘American Buffalo’ and ‘The Untouchables’, the plot of ‘Boston Marriage’ is set during the turn of the twentieth century and involves a woman, Claire, returning to the home of her ex-lover, Anna, asking to use her bedroom to bring her new young lover to as they have no where else to go. Out of this experience, jealousy starts to fester within Anna and old familiar feelings start to return to them both. The term Boston marriage was used around the early twentieth century to describe women who were living together or were possibly romantically involved – hence the name of the play.

© Stephen Henry

The idea for the play was born from David Mamet’s frustration at the time “[It was written] in response to critics saying that he couldn't write for women, because he excelled in writing plays for men for many years. So he wrote ‘Boston Marriage’, which has two of three of the greatest female roles I've even seen on stage. I'm actually over the moon to be playing the role of Claire. I think it's a very exciting opportunity to have a three female cast: females actors and a female director [Andrea Moor], to smash it for the sisterhood.”

© Stephen Henry

At its very heart, ‘Boston Marriage’ is a very witty period comedy, but also one with a very modern and universal message, as Rachel points out. “[It’s about] the length people will go to when they are in love and that kind of madness that takes over when they initially fall in love. I think there is a nice balance between the love my character Claire feels for Anna, the one she hasn't seen for a very long time, and this new love she has, the passionate attraction she has for this younger woman.

© Stephen Henry

“It's very interesting as the two different types of love thoroughly get explored, as well as being very, very funny. You kind of get the balance of passion and the long term friendship and affection that you have for a very long time; so, it's a real battle for Claire in that regard. And also jealousy, for what people will do when they are maddened by envy and lust and very big emotions that sort of feeds through these characters."

The theatre was actually where Rachel began her career shortly after graduating from NIDA in 1996, where she performed for a number of years before securing roles in film and television. She is happy to experience the magic of theatre once more. “It's such a fantastic medium to work in, to have the audience in the room with you and to be able to hear their responses; positive or negative. To be able to see the faces of people right in front of you rather than waiting a long time afterwards.

“Especially in today's society for them to be sitting down together and not looking at their mobile phone or scrolling through Facebook or Instagram, but actually listening to people tell a story. I think it's important in today’s culture to maintain the strength of the arts in our community, to sit down together and listen to a story. To be in that dark space and feel emotions and cry in the dark or laugh in the dark and feel the sense of liberation that the theatre gives you, emotionally and at the end of it… you have that space where you can feel things with other people and in a wonderful way, that’s what I love about theatre.”

'Boston Marriage' plays at QPAC  24 January - 15 February.

Boston Marriage Regional Tour

20 & 21 Feb – The Arts Centre Gold Coast
25 Feb – Ipswich Civic Theatre
4 March – Gladstone Entertainment Convention Centre
7 March – Mackey Entertainment And Convention Centre
12 March – Cairns Civic Theatre>
14 March – Townsville Civic Theatre
18 March – Mount Isa Civic Theatre
24 & 25 March – Nambour Civic Theatre