When the Rain Stops Falling is a play about family, secret legacies, betrayal and forgiveness seen across four generations and spanning two continents. The drama had its world premiere as part of the 2008 Adelaide Festival of Arts.
It was written by renowned Australian playwright and screenwriter, Andrew Bovell.
Synopsis
The play opens to the sound of falling rain in the desert region of Alice Springs, Australia in 2039.
Itinerant, eccentric wanderer, Gabriel York, is waiting for a visit from his adult English son, Andrew, after years of estrangement. Gabriel is keen to make a good impression. With an empty wallet, empty fridge and flooding barring the roads, Gabriel has no idea what to serve his son or where to find food. Suddenly a fish falls from the sky, landing at his feet.
The action then shifts to the past, to a modest flat in London in 1959.
The relationship between married couple Henry and Elizabeth Law (Gabriel York's grandparents) begins to suffer soon after their son (Gabriel Law) is born. In the same flat in 1988, Gabriel Law's relationship is strained due to his mother Elizabeth's refusal to shed light on his father's mysterious disappearance when he was only seven.
Keen to retrace his father's footsteps and piece together his family's past, Gabriel Law journeys to Australia where he meets a vulnerable young roadhouse waitress, Gabrielle York. Gabrielle is troubled by her own tragic past, having lost both her parents in the aftermath of her brother's disappearance. The pair discover the truth about their family histories.
Setting
The play takes place in various timeframes between 1959 and 2039, in rural Alice Springs and Coorong, Australia and London, England. The 2039 scenes feel faintly apocalyptic. Much of the action is staged around a dining room table, where family members almost "catch glimpses of one another across time". Famous Australian landmark, Uluru can be seen as a surreal backdrop in several scenes.
Characters
The full list of characters is: Gabriel York Gabriel Law Gabrielle York (younger and older versions) Henry Law Andrew Price Elizabeth Law (younger and older versions) Joe Ryan
The original cast of the 2008 and 2009 production consisted of Paul Blackwell, Michaela Cantwell, Carmel Johnson, Kris McQuade, Yalin Ozucelik, Anna Lise Phillips, Neil Pigot and musician and composer Quentin Grant, who was a collaborator in the creative process and performed the piano music live.
Structure
The two hour full-length play is performed without an intermission. Its non-linear structure is unfolded in 22 scenes. The drama features several monologues.
A critic from Time Magazine described the play as featuring "the most complicated time-shifting dramatic structure I've seen in years" due to the deliberately disorienting shifts in timeframe and characters from different periods often overlapping on stage.
As the drama progresses, the connections between the interweaving stories and the characters become clear.
Repetition and idioms, passed down throughout the generations, are devices used throughout the play.
Described as a "poetic pretzel of a play", the drama has drawn comparisons to another structurally complex piece, Wajdi Mouawad's Incendies (also known as Scorched in English translation).
Themes
When the Rain Stops Falling explores themes relating to self-identity, abandonment, forgiveness and love and how inherited legacies shape our future in seen and unseen ways.
The themes are referenced in Gabriel York's opening monologue as he nervously awaits his son:
"I know what he wants. He wants what all young men want from their fathers. He wants to know who he is. Where he comes from. Where he belongs. And for the life of me I don't know what to tell him."
According to Time Magazine journalist Richard Zoglin, the time shifts throughout the play serve as metaphors for the "impossibility of escaping the past, for the way we are all shaped by what came before — and are living in the shadow of what comes next." The drama poses the question of whether we have the capacity to correct the damage of the past in the present. For all its bleakness, there are surprising moments of humor. The play ends on a note of optimism and hope.
Climate change and how it has reshaped the world is a major theme, with the textured soundscape and lighting design conveying both an ominous atmosphere and an unceasing tropical rainstorm in Alice Springs in 2039.
In an interview, the playwright Andrew Bovell said the play depicted "the relationship between a family saga and the Anthropocene."