When the Rain Stops Falling / Shows /

When the Rain Stops Falling

Written by: Andrew Bovell
Directed by: Susan Wilson
Circa One

29 July − 27 August

Multi-layered brilliance.

The surprise hit of the Adelaide Festival, this sweeping Australian drama by Andrew Bovell, best known for the film Lantana, has won a swathe of awards.

It begins with a miracle in Alice Springs in the year 2039. A fish falls from the sky and lands at the feet of Gabriel York. It still smells of the sea. It's been raining for days and Gabriel knows something is wrong.

An epic play spanning four generations and two continents, When the Rain Stops Falling moves from the claustrophobia of a 1950s London flat to the windswept coast of Southern Australia and into the heart of the desert. As it interweaves the series of connected stories, seven people confront the mysteries of their past revealing how patterns of betrayal, love and abandonment are passed on, until finally, as the desert is inundated with rain, one young man finds the courage to defy the legacy.

"Compelling and fascinating - it unrolls stories to touch all hearts. Don't miss it." - Messenger Press

"A play of astonishing ambition and emotional power" - Time Out

"Words are insufficient, you must see this show to understand how exceptional it is" - Adelaide Theatre Guide

"When the Rain Stops Falling will remain etched in my brain forever" - Arts Hub

When The Rain Stops Falling was originally commissioned and first produced by Brink Productions in Australia, in February 2008.

Running time: 2 hours, 5 mins (no interval)

Cast and crew

Starring Donna Akersten, Jude Gibson, Sophie Hambleton, Christopher Brougham, Jason Whyte, Allison Walls, Richard Chapman.

Show times

29 July − 27 August

Tuesday and Wednesday 6.30pm

Thursday through Saturday 8.00pm

Sunday 4.00pm

Running time: 2 hours, 5 mins (no interval)

Ticket prices

$46 Adults

$38 Concessions

$33 Friends of Circa (to 11 August)

$39 Groups 6+

$36 Groups 20+

$25 Under 25s

$25 Specials Friday 29 July and Sunday 31 July

Reviews

Spendid, Inspiring, Engrossing

Reviewed by Laurie Atkinson, The Dominion Post, 2 August 2011

Susan Wilson seems to be able to pull out all the stops when it comes to casting and staging large scale, engrossing family dramas such as Joyful and Triumphant, Angels in America and August: Osage County. Along with her marvellous ensemble cast she has triumphed yet again with the dark, layered, but always fascinating and moving When the Rain Stops Falling.
Strange things happen during this play: it snows at Ayers Rock; a fish falls out of the sky in Alice Springs; fish soup seems to be the only food eaten; the action moves back and forth in time and place from the 1960s to 2039 between London and Australia; we follow four generations of a family riven by an event in the past and we follow how the sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons; and there is a sense of a pending apocalyptic catastrophe throughout.
The play is like a complex dance. Past and present merge and two of the characters have an older and younger self who often appear in the same scenes. It starts with a choreographed prologue of the cast walking with umbrellas in the rain; it ends with all the family sitting at a table (a visual echo of The Last Supper) and a sense of atonement.
And like the action the dialogue has repetitions (soup/rain in Bangladesh/ /Saturn/references to repainting dingy rooms) that are taken up by different characters in different times and places. At times the symbolism is overdone: three characters are called Gabriel which means the man of God and sometimes the Angel of Death; Saturn who is identified with time and devouring his own children; and the present the adult son brings to his father he has never met is something the audience knows only his alcoholic great grand-mother, whom he never met, knew.
For all its seeming complexities it is actually straightforward to follow thanks to a family tree in the programme and the superb video design (Johann Nortje) which shows us when and where the action is taking place. But it is the outstanding cast who make it easy because they are all absolutely in tune with their characters.
Just one example out of many scenes I could mention: Jude Gibson as the elderly Gabrielle facing dementia and saying farewell, while she still knows who he is, to her loving companion who knows she has always been in love with another. It is a heart-wrenching scene and she and Christopher Brougham as the unloved Joe play it with complete conviction and a lightness of touch that keeps it from sentimentality.
The rest of the cast play their scenes with equal skill and emotion supported by Marcus McShane's lighting and Gareth Hobbs's music and sound design.
It's a splendid and inspiring night at the theatre which kept the opening night audience engrossed.

[Note: This review was published in the Dominion Post online, following the system failure that meant there was no print edition on Tuesday 2 August 2011.]

A must see at Circa

Reviewed by Lynn Freeman, Capital Times, 3 August 2011

You may remember just a few months ago I urged you to go and see August: Osage County at Circa. I urge you even harder to see this production. It's that important.

Miracles can happen - but can this twisted and damaged branch of a family tree hang on? The family story Andrew Bovell tells, parallels with a planet in crisis after generations of neglect and exploitation. The play deftly time travels between 1959 and 2039 and at points in between. While the earth is drenched in rain in the future, the family members are also drowning, be it their sorrows in alcohol, or through self imposed isolation, or in memories which overwhelm them.

Bovell makes you work hard to keep up with all the time and place changes. We have older and younger versions of the key characters. It takes some time to get to grips with all of them and how they interrelate. The play for the first half an hour is as slippery as the fish that falls from the sky within the first few minutes of the play. And that is the only surprise I will disclose.

Jason Whyte give his best performance yet - and that is saying something - playing a grandfather and grandson, both of them seeking peace in isolation. Donna Akersten and Alison Walls are paired up as the older and younger Elizabeth, and Jude Gibson and Sophie Hambleton twinned as Gabrielle, and they pull it off as if by magic. Christopher Brougham will have you in tears as Gabrielle's adoring husband, and Richard Chapman completes this fantastic ensemble as the son and great grandson of the man who put the future of the family in peril.

Susan Wilson can be extremely proud of what she and her cast achieve with this play. It's brilliantly, poetically and densely written. But it could be so easily botched. The cast pour everything they have into their performances under Wilson's assured direction, the video images (Johann Nortje), set (John Hodgkins) and lighting (Marcus McShane), they give us an unforgettable night and remind us what theatre can do that no other artform can.