When the rain stops falling

‘When the rain stops falling’ has a chal­leng­ing nar­ra­tive and struc­ture — one actor (x2) plays two char­ac­ters, two actors (x2) play one char­ac­ter, three char­ac­ters have the same name, and the time­line spans 80 years. There’s a fam­i­ly tree in the pro­gramme to help keep the char­ac­ters sort­ed but even then it can be tricky.

It’s worth it.

The play is a riff on geneal­o­gy, cul­tur­al her­itage, con­se­quences, and the impact of humans on the plan­et.  The words are lyri­cal and beau­ti­ful.  There are phras­es and ges­tures that are repeat­ed, link­ing the years and the char­ac­ters togeth­er.

It’s set in Eng­land and Aus­tralia.  Hen­ry (Jason Whyte) and Eliz­a­beth (Ali­son Walls) are where our sto­ry starts – in the time­line at least. Whyte is a clev­er­ly self-con­tained Eng­lish­man and Walls is superb as the wronged wife. Next in the time­line are Eliz­a­beth (Don­na Aker­sten), Gabriel (Richard Chap­man) and Gabrielle (Sophie Ham­ble­ton).  Aker­sten is a won­der­ful ‘woman with a secret’. Chap­man and Ham­ble­ton take the rela­tion­ship between their char­ac­ters and make it incred­i­bly sweet. Gabrielle (Jude Gib­son) and Joe (Christo­pher Brougham) bring the sto­ry clos­er to our own time. They are both won­der­ful in por­tray­ing the rela­tion­ship between the two char­ac­ters. The last pair­ing, Gabriel (Jason Whyte) and Andrew (Richard Chap­man), are well into the future. Their sto­ry wraps up the nar­ra­tive with a beau­ti­ful­ly chore­o­graphed sequence.

I loved the look of the pro­duc­tion. It’s fair­ly sparse — a floor, a table, some chairs, a coat rack, a serv­ing board, and a screen. The stage floor reflects a desert sur­face. It includes cir­cles which  imi­tate both the way water rip­ples out from a droplet and raked cir­cles in a zen gar­den. You can hear some of the sound design on the trail­er.

A clever piece of sto­ry­telling which is worth mak­ing the effort to under­stand what’s going on. (Please go and see it so Cir­ca can do more like this.)

  • When the rain stops falling plays at Cir­ca The­atre until 27 August.