2025: When the Rain Stops Falling by Andrew Bovell

 

When the Rain Stops Falling. Based on the play by Andrew Bovell. Mockingbird Theatrics at Belconnen Arts Centre May 8-17, 2025

Directed and designed by Chris Baldock

​Reviewed by Frank McKone
May 8

Cast:
Gabriel York – Chris Baldock
Elizabeth Law (Older) – Liz St Clair Long; Elizabeth Law (Younger) – Ruth Hudson
Joe Ryan – Bruce Hardie
Gabrielle York (Older) – Jess Beange; Gabrielle York (Younger) – Jayde Dowhy
Gabriel Law – Leonidas Katsinas; Henry Law – Zac Bridgman
Andrew Price – Dyllan Ormazabal

Production Team:
Director: Chris Baldock; Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Assistant Director: Zac Bridgman; Properties: Natalie Trafford and Chris Baldock
Set & Projection Design: Chris Baldock; Projection Realisation: Rhiley Winnett
Sound Design: Chris Baldock
Lighting, Sound and Projection Operation: Rhiley Winnett
Costumes: Chris Baldock and Cast

As Gabriel Law and Gabrielle York

When the Rain Stops Falling is among the most significant Australian plays.  This is because it’s like an Argyle diamond.  Of all diamonds in the world, it has a special character, which is peculiar to Australia.  

The diamond itself at core is emotional as a study in more than 20 scenes of a family in regeneration over a lifetime.  The emotion is centred on Gabriel York’s need to re-connect with his only son after he left his wife some 20 years before when he was 30 and Andrew was 8.

But the diamond is bigger than it first seems.  Gabriel senses a connection back to his grandfather, through a series of family links over 80 years, which finally bring Andrew to find his father.  It is in the playing out of these links of loves, and failures to love enough, full of hopes and ironies, that the diamond shows itself to be Australian, of many colours.

As I wrote about the original Sydney Theatre Company production in 2010, “‘The play is unrelievedly bleak but with a denouement of unexpected hope: a moving, almost revelatory evening of theater’ [Richard Zoglin, Time] while the Australian audience on opening night in Canberra responded to the many moments of ironic humour which are built into our culture.  We certainly found the unexpected hope, but not an unrelieved bleakness.  In fact, without laughter, I suspect, the unexpected hope at the end would have been maudlin and sentimental.  In this production, it was ultimately satisfying to know that Gabriel and his son Andrew, with the help of a fish falling from the sky, could at last enjoy each other’s company after four generations of emotional disaster.”

Chris Baldock’s production of When the Rain Stops Falling, in a small scale in-the-round setting, captures Gabriel’s frustrations and final happiness in Andrew’s company, but is more subdued in tone.  This is because there are facets of the diamond which bring to light issues, especially about the natural environment and social behaviour – including the fish falling out of the sky – which encouraged a higher level of Australian ironic laughter on the bigger stage, particularly on the contrasts between the Englishness of the attitudes in Gabriel’s grandparents and the realities of colonial life.

Yet the seriousness, especially of the women’s lack of status as against the men’s belief in going their own way no matter what, certainly comes through as it should, perhaps even more so in 2025 than in 2010, making this production well worth seeing.

And not to forget that Climate Change is the brightest political facet of this play.

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For follow-up, I think it’s fair to say that Bovell’s playscript is a twist-and-turn experience in trying to catch on to the stories in Gabriel’s family history.  

If you need help, here is a family tree, based on Cygnet Theatre; ShowerHacks.com. "Genealogy, the ancestry of When the Rain Stops Falling."; and www.sustainabletheatre.org/index.php/narrative/climate-change-generational-influence

 As they appear in their various scenes:

Grandfather Henry Law in his Forties in the 1960’s
Grandmother (younger) Elizabeth Law in her Thirties in the 1960’s
                        (older) Elizabeth Law in her  Fifties in 1988
Father Gabriel Law at Twenty-eight in 1988
Mother (younger) Gabrielle York at Twenty-four in 1988
                (older) Gabrielle York in her Fifties in 2013
                Joe Ryan (married to Gabrielle York) in his Fifties in 2013
Gabriel York at Fifty in 2039
Eliza Price – Andrew’s mother doesn't appear.
Andrew Price at Twenty-eight in 2039
 
The pictures below are from Cygnet Theatre, San Diego, California

 

This was created by the Cygnet Theatre while producing When the Rain Stops Falling to explain the connections of the characters. With this, we can understand the generational repetitive actions that involve the change in climate.  

 

Copyright: Frank McKone, Canberra