Lorna Irvine isn't impressed by an 'overwrought, predictable' production, even if it has a few great performances within.
Everybody in Andrew Bovell's play is longing to escape in some way. I kind of know how they feel.
A cross-generational jigsaw which, using heavy-handed allegorical symbolism, seeks to explore the sins of the father; it is overwrought, predictable and bleak to the point of exhaustion.
Henry Law (Robert Benison), the protagonist on which the drama is framed, is a paranoid desperate man whose world is about to fall apart. So he disappears. His son Gabriel is seeking him to confront him about some home truths.
The time leaps, displayed on umbrellas and cyclical ritual of family situations, are an interesting device initially, but become a tiresome distraction.
There are some howlingly bad performances here, which makes the excellent ones stick out even more--notably Camille Marmie as the younger Elizabeth Law, torn between spite and adoration for her husband, in spite of herself, and Alan Mackenzie as her troubled son, the aforementioned Gabriel trying to prise secrets out of her—both are wonderful.
But as the show limps towards the finish line, it's hard to care about such thin characters, much less trite issue-based plotlines. And no amount of falling fish can save them.
When the Rain Stops Falling performs at the Tron until February 7, 2015.
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