When The Rain Stops Falling | Brisbane Arts Theatre
When The Rain Stops Falling, originally written by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell, is a multilayered family story that set from England to Australia between 1959 and 2039.
It is a warp of family memories, secrets, abandonment, betrayal, survival and love.
On Saturday night, I was fortunate to see this moving, ambitious play at Brisbane Arts Theatre directed by Hamish Chappell, particularly on an evening that was drizzling outside, while ‘raining’ inside the theatre.
Image credit: Kris Anderson
The play was complex. It was an EPIC PUZZLE that needed to be slowly pierced together by the audiences to unravel the family story across four generations and two hemispheres. I nearly needed a map to follow through, as it wasn’t until half way through the show that I began to have an understanding of the play (over the course of two hours without an intermission). Thank goodness for the family tree in the program! I eventually put all the pieces together, especially when the same actor played two different characters in different generations, the son and the father shared the same name, and there were both the younger and older version of the characters… It was a lot of work to solve the puzzle.
Time was a main element of the show. It was in nonlinear structure, which started in 2039 to the sound of a thunderstorm, a man dressed in old fashioned brown suit standing at the centre of the stage holding his umbrella, ‘In Alice Springs a fish falls from the sky at the feet of Gabriel York…’, then travelled back to 1959, flitting between different time periods erratically. One powerful scene was the silent canon movements among all characters of all generations, drying umbrellas and hanging coats, and ended up drinking fish soup in unison around the table. This time loop reflected the circling of generations and the globe as history repeated within the family, in which the sons sought to find connections to their fathers. I felt a sense of calm melancholy swept over the room, as if some dark secrets were about to reveal.
There were lots of biblical references in the play, such as the character names Gabriel/Gabrielle which was a reference to ‘man of God’. The recurring theme that connected the family together was the fish, the fish soup. The fish falling from the sky symbolised as a miracle from God; whereas the rain symbolised salvation, which cleansed sins away, emphasizing the theme of forgiveness by removing guilt passed on to generations. In addition, the rain highlighted the consequences of human actions on the environment and climate change, “There are people drowning in Bangladesh” as a result of the floods.
The production showcased many compelling monologues. However, what stood out to me the most was the split scene of the younger and older Gabrielle York. One side of the stage was Gabrielle sat on the bench next to the English bloke Gabriel Law, while on the other side of the stage, the older Gabrielle York dressed in a long white gown under the spotlight talked to her younger self as an internal monologue, “You’re twenty-four years old. You’re staring down the highway…for your sake you could let it go…” giving the audience a glimpse into her inner thoughts and dilemmas at that moment.
Despite the complexity of the play, the lighting in between scenes effectively transitioned between time periods and locations. The set design was simple: a long wooden table, chairs, a bench, and a sideboard with hangers. The minimalistic set with ‘off-white’ walls emphasized the stark desert the characters navigated, which contrasted with the dark mystery in the family history.
When The Rain Stops Falling will bring you an experience of sorrow, love, life and death in the same heartbeat. This is a beautifully written and wonderfully performed theatre piece, that you do not want to miss.
