When The Rain Stops Falling

By Andrew Bovell
Directed by Jane Lobb

It’s raining. A man screams. A fish falls from the sky. Gabriel York is awaiting the arrival of his grown son whom he hasn’t seen since he was seven.

That is the opening of this epic play that takes us back and forth in time from one generation to another, from 1950s London to the rain-soaked Australian desert in 2039.

When the Rain Stops Falling charts a legacy of betrayal, mysterious disappearances and fish soup in a family saga that spans eighty years and two continents. The sins of the father are visited on the son, as secrets and lies send one young man across the hemispheres in search of answers, whilst a worldwide environmental disaster unfolds.

'You can be standing on solid ground then without even noticing, it turns to water beneath you. And if you don’t move, you’ll drown.'

The structural rules of this ensemble play are fluid like water. The past haunts the future and the future reaches into the past, and we see family members crossing paths across time and space. All the characters are searching for the absent – lost fathers, husbands, sons and lovers. And grappling with the devastating unavoidability of the truth. Whatever’s welling up inside of them is very close to the surface. If you just touch them, there’s an outburst.

'The past is a mystery.' But the truth will always reveal itself. It can fester beneath our skin for generations. Eventually it will rise to the surface.