REVIEW: When the Rain Stops Falling @ Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts

The fluttering wings of a butterfly in the Amazon forest cause a cyclone in northern Australia. That could well be the thesis for Andrew Bovell’s new play When the Rain Stops Falling given a superb, loving premiere at the Scott Theatre by Brink Productions, State Theatre of SA and the 2008 Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts. In this short review I cannot do justice to the experience of the play that runs non-stop for a short two hours and the excitement and emotions associated with it. I can only begin to share my deep feelings of the event. Suffice to say that even if I see nothing else in this Festival, When the Rain Stops Falling will remain etched in my brain forever. From Gabriel York’s opening cry of, “I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe in miracles!” as an ocean dwelling fish falls from the sky in Alice Springs to the bewildered laying out of family relics that seem to only be connected by their presence I was drawn into the lives of the characters. Ironically the name ‘Gabriel’ translates as ‘the man of God’. Bovell, the playwright, Hossein Valamanesh, the collaborator and designer of a setting that assists in and insists on meditative reflection, Quentin Grant, the composer and invisibly ever present musician, Chris Drummond, the director, and the talented cast have all worked together to give an unforgettable and emotional theatrical experience. Niklas Pajanti’s lighting design melds seamlessly into the setting to help create indelible images. The events of the play range over eighty years – from London in 1958 to Alice Springs in two thousand and thirty eight, but it is not a bleak vision of a dire future. The implications of the effects of climate change provide the canvas to the minutiae of the lives of the people: in 1958 London the emotional turmoil of newly weds where the difficult adjustment to living with another person is exacerbated by one partner’s psychological problem; emotional aridity caused by the denial of love; the turmoil of a suddenly burgeoning love in the Coorong; the spiritual impact of sunrise near Uluru; the long, slow devotion within an almost accidental marriage; and the loss and rediscovery of filial and paternal love. Just as they do in memory the events of the play occur simultaneously yet without confusion. Neil Pigot is Gabriel York in two thousand and thirty eight and he is also Gabriel’s grandfather Henry Law in 1958. Yalin Ozucelik is Gabriel Law and Andrew Price, the abandoned sons of Henry Law and Gabriel York. Paul Blackwell is Joe Ryan, Gabriel York’s stepfather and the rock of his troubled life as well as a devoted husband trying to come to terms with his wife’s slide into Alzheimers. Michaela Cantwell is the young Elizabeth Law, Henry’s new wife in 1958 London, seen in the flush of a recent marriage and devotion and then changing to adjust to the discoveries of her husband’s drives that dampen her love as she slides into the solace of alcohol. Carmel Johnson is Elizabeth Law some thirty years on as a repressed alcoholic who seems to have withheld her love from her son yet remains a caring mother in the bleakness of London. The rain reflected in the title is a metaphor for the unrelenting troubles that beset her family. Anna Lise Phillips is Gabrielle York in 1988, a 24-year-old waitress in a roadhouse on the Coorong. Gabrielle is a virgin whose parents have committed suicide after the death of their eight-year-old son and Gabrielle’s older brother and she falls in love with the Englishman Gabriel Law who is trying to retrace the paths of his long lost father Henry. Kris McQuade is Gabrielle York some twenty six years later in the grips of rapidly advancing Alzheimers who no longer recognises her caring husband Joe Ryan. When Gabriel York brings out the family relics in front of his estranged son Andrew in Alice of 2038 the audience immediately recognises their significance and connections while the characters stumble on unwittingly. Andrew Bovell shows his playwrighting skills as every word counts like it does in Chekhov and like Stoppard in After Magritte, Bovell leaves the audience knowing all while the characters remain befuddled. If you believe that theatre should provoke, disturb and evoke unforgettable images then you must not miss When the Rain Stops Falling. When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell; a collaboration with Hossein Valamanesh and Brink Productions. Directed by Chris Drummond for Brink Productions, State Theatre Company of S A and the 2008 Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts. Scott Theatre, 28 Feb – 15 Mar 2008. For full article, read here ---> http://tinyurl.com/33zvck