When the Rain Stops Falling
THE STORY: It’s raining. Gabriel York is awaiting the arrival of his grown son whom he hasn’t seen since he was seven. “I know what he wants. He wants what all young men want from their fathers. He wants to know who he is. Where he comes from. Where he belongs. And for the life of me I don’t know what to tell him.” That’s the beginning of this compelling family saga that takes us back and forth in time from one generation to another, from 1959 to 2039, from London to Australia. With four generations of fathers and sons, their mothers, lovers and wives, the play is epic in its scope, yet at the same time extraordinarily intimate.
“Bovell…has created a quietly spellbinding puzzle of a universe that is as stealthily thrilling and defiantly mystical as it is catastrophically melancholy.” —Newsday (NY).
“Bovell’s time-hopping structure is intricate but surprisingly natural—never strained or purposely obfuscating. Rather, as in the works of Faulkner, it is a powerful metaphor for the impossibility of escaping the past, for the way we are all shaped by what came before—and are living in the shadow of what comes next.” —Time Magazine.
“Bovell’s play is weighty stuff, a work of great sorrow and beauty.” —Variety.
“Bovell weaves in symbolic imagery and the repetition of key phrases. This gives a surreal feel to the enterprise, without lessening its emotional impact.” —TheaterMania.
