Review: "When The Rain Stops Falling"

When The Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell
Directed by Shane Bosher
Silo Theatre
Herald Theatre, The Edge
Until July 3

“When The Rain Stops Falling” starts dramatically enough but there is a sense that it could be an earnest political drama.

We learn from Gabriel, the first charcater we meet that climate change has created a world in which it rains all the time and then a fish mysteriously falls out of the sky during a rain storm in the middle of the Australian desert. He also notes that he has been reading the book “The Decline of the American Empire 1975 – 2015”.

It looks as though this is going to be a cautionary tale about environmental disaster and post apocalyptic nightmares.

But it is not the rupturing of the Earth which is at the core of this play. Rather it is about the splintering of families and the disintegration of individuals under the weight of relationships. As one of the parents says, “Children are cruel” and later one of the children remarks that, “Parents are cruel”

The environmental disasters of the last couple of centuries are alluded to but they are there as some sort of parallel time frame to show that Nature and human nature are both willful and unpredictable.

The action of the play takes place in London and various locations in Australia, spanning 80 years from 1959 through to 2039, and depicts four generations and their interwoven stories.

Playwright Andrew Bovell cleverly tells his tale with repeated motifs and lines which underscore the seeming simplicity and banality of life along with its deep mystery. He shows how a life can be summed up in a few word or objects as in the final scene when the Andrew, the last of the line is presented with objects from a suitcase – a shoe, a stick, a hat, a book, some letters and a jar.

To the audience they are a set of almost symbolic objects which represent a history which has been unraveled for us, to the young man they are unfathomable links to the past which will take him on another journey.

With several of the characters played by two actors as well as two of the actors taking on a couple roles the intersecting stories and lives needs concentration. It also needs precise and imaginative direction. Director Shane Bosher demonstrates an understanding of how the stage should be used as he moves the characters from real life situations to sequences which are ritualistic and symbolic.

The cast, like post apocalyptic flowers bloom vividly on the stage and they use the dialogue expertly at times treating it like Beckett while at other times it’s almost pure Chekov.

They create a continually shifting emotional atmosphere from Stephen Lovatt’s beautifully modulated, rambling monologue which opens the play to the edgy vibrancy of Morgana O’Reilly.

There are some rippling, ominous interchanges between Tandi Wright and Stephen Lovatt as well as tormented dialogue between Peter Elliot and Jude Gibson which hint at a troubled past.

Simon London’s agonizing conversation with his withholding mother played by Jennifer Ludlum cruelly reveals the gulf which can exist between parent and child.

Adding immensely to the production is the set, soundscape and well judged costumes created by the design team of John Verryt, Jeremy Fern, Tama Waipara and Elizabeth Whiting