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.