WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING - THE ADVERTISER REVIEW

by Samela Harris
February 28, 2008 10:30pm
 
LONG awaited and highly anticipated, Andrew Bovell's new play does not disappoint - although it does, from time to time, confuse.

The confusion is about time - for the play itself is about time - sweeping through the decades and the generations from the past to the future.

As the tale of the family tree evolves, and as the tree is uprooted or, at least, upended in the antipodean sense, Bovell rams home some of the hard truths of life - the almost tedious commonality of man, the paucity of new thought, the way life repeats itself, the perverse compulsion we have to want to know who we are, the saddle of shame we wear when we keep secrets, even with the best intentions and how damned small we are in the scale of things.

For all its wealth of words, the play is sparse in presentation - while vast in scale.

Director Chris Drummond has kept the action taut with artifice at play's opening monologue and gradually, over the two uninterrupted hours, he allows elements of naturalism to infiltrate as emotions rise and relationships coalesce.

Hossein Valamanesh's design is austere, rain, snow and roads projected onto white dropped screens, simple furniture - with a stately Australiana surprise in store for the audience. Niklas Pajanti's lighting is sharp and pure, adding a very specific layer of eloquence. As for the cast, it is simply superior - with Carmel Johnson outstanding. At plays end, there is not a dry eye in the house.