When the Rain Stops Falling

When the Rain Stops Falling, by Australian writer Andrew Bovell, is a dreary jigsaw puzzle of a play about a family's history in Australia and England, jumping back and forth in time, with much thunder and rain (powerful sound by Fitz Patton). It's hard to tell where some of the pieces fit in this inter-generational, angst-ridden play filled with shadowy figures fading on and off the stage as the tricky double-turntable set by David Korins does slow or fast counter-turns (and sometimes the actors do nothing).

Starting with a monologue by an ineffective, miserable man full of pain and anguish (the very effective actor Michael Siberry) with whom I couldn't identify, the piece then focuses on a group of miserable people who, contrary to human nature, have not a speck of irony or a touch of lightness.

The play seems to be a demonstration: rain and thunder, poses of poverty is several eras -- and they all eat fish soup. There are recountings of natural disasters through the ages with intellectual philosophical analyses lectured by a female character stopping the non-action of the play. Lots of exposition instead of interaction in a confusing mix of who is who at what age. Sometimes there is more action in the contrasting turntables than in the play of these losers in a lost world drenched in (I suppose) the effects of Global Warming in a near future. (I thought God promised Noah that that was the last wipe-out by flood.) Then, okay, let's abandon premise and make a main character a child molester, provoking the move to Australia.

The play is full of repetitions, many painful soliloquies, long slow moments of people standing like statues. The actors, all effective professionals, are all quite good, and they give it a go. The lighting by Tyler Micoleau and costumes by Clint Ramos support the dim dreariness, and direction by David Cromer sustains it.