WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING by andrew bovell | PRESENTED BY THEATRE WORKS AND IRON LUNG THEATRE 12 - 31 JULY THEATRE WORKS, 14 ACLAND STREET, ST KILDA FISH SOUP, MOURNING, AND HOPE AT THE END OF THE WORLD Andrew Bovell’s When the Rain Stops Falling is a sprawling epic of a play – a sleek, Understanding the play’s melancholy also allows us to see a ray of hope. Bovell stark, emotionally raw meditation on climate change and extinction disguised as once wrote: a family saga stretching from 1959 in London to 2039 in Alice Springs, Australia. A workshop called ‘The Extinction Project’ and Bovell’s attendance at an exhibit “In the final scene of the play there is hope that the damage of the past can on Melancholia in Paris gave him the idea to put this play together. Bovell found be undone or at least understood and there is a suggestion that we have the the motif of Saturn that repeats in the play, including the metaphor of ‘eating capacity with this understanding to move on in a different way … But what I also the future’, in the same exhibit. Bovell’s layering of scene upon scene creates a saw was that melancholy is not the point at which we become inactive, but the presence of deep time onstage. The family becomes a collective protagonist and very opposite. It actually describes the deep thinking we need to do that precedes the impact of slow violence on the family and on the climate is made physically change. And I suddenly thought: ‘OK, we are feeling very melancholy about the present for the audience. world we actually live in, but what we are doing is thinking and imagining what the world must become if we are to survive’. That brought a shift in the way I was Today, during the COVID era, populations the world over know what it is like to looking at this work because it was no longer about warning and doom. This was become united in one thing – a collective effort to save each other. In early 2020, going to be a play about the necessity to change and the ability to change for Australia experienced one of its worst bushfire seasons in history. Thousands of fish the better. And that led me to look at the Enlightenment, another period of human died in NSW as a result of ash washing into rivers and oceans. Temperatures soared transformation, if you like, a huge and significant shift in the way human beings up and down – jumping from 16 degrees to 42 degrees with alarming frequency. thought about themselves.” Scientists say humans are causing the sixth mass extinct and its happening 1000 times faster than previous ages. When the Rain Stops Falling is a prophetic play – not in its insights about the future but, instead, into the present. As Bovell says: “It asks us: are we at the will of forces From the real-time lessons of global action during COVID, we know how to act out of our control or are we in control of our destiny and can make the changes collectively for the greater good. Can we apply this thinking to our largest problem necessary to live according to the responsibility we have as human beings? Theatre yet – climate change? In the play the violent weather patterns, the breakdown can tell us hopeful stories … that’s what I am trying to communicate. Past mistakes of the environment and global species extinction serve as metaphors for the can be addressed in the future and that must give us hope and a sense of purpose emotional turmoil the characters are experiencing in their lives. The near-constant for why we are here”. rain and impending storm builds toward a type of end-of-world apocalypse – a seismic shift in how people live their day-to-day. FAMILY TREE ANDREW BRIONY BOVELL DUNN WRITER DIRECTOR Andrew is an internationally recognised writer for the stage and screen. His works for the During her twenty-year career Briony Dunn has worked as director, tutor, script assessor stage include Things I Know to be True, a co-production between State Theatre Company and filmmaker with a slew of esteemed companies including NIDA, ATYP, Griffin Theatre of South Australia and Frantic Assembly in the UK, and an adaptation of Kate Grenville’s Company, Company B Belvoir, Belvoir Downstairs, Big hArt, Ashfield Youth Theatre, PACT novel The Secret River directed by Neil Armfield for the Sydney Theatre Company/Sydney Youth Theatre, Carriageworks, Playworks and Playwriting Australia. Briony’s work as a Festival 2013 and Edinburgh Festival and National Theatre London 2019. And When the filmmaker includes directing the short documentaries, He Used to Call Me Boz (Super 8/ Rain Stops Falling for Festival of the Arts 2008 and Sydney Theatre Company/Melbourne Digital) and From Here, shot in the West Bank. Briony is a graduate of the NIDA directing Theatre Company in 2009. The play was also produced in London at the Almeida Theatre course and also has a Master of Arts in Theatre from UNSW. In 2019 Briony directed Iron in 2009 and in New York at The Lincoln Centre in 2010, where it won five Lucille Lortell Lung’s inaugural show ‘night, Mother by Marsha Norman. Briony is currently part of the Awards and was named best new play of the year by Time Magazine. Other plays include Melbourne Theatre Company’s Women in Theatre Program in the programming stream. Anthem, Holy Day, Who’s Afraid of the Working Class, Speaking in Tongues, Scenes from a Briony recently worked on The Greer Effect by Vanessa O’Neill – a creative development Separation, Ship of Fools and After Dinner. at Theatre Works starring Caroline Lee and Jennifer Vuletic and is Literary Manager at Theatre Works. Andrew’s film credits include Stoner an adaptation of John Williams novel for Blumhouse/ F4, In the Shadow of Iris, a French language adaptation of his screenplay Chaos directed by Jalil Lespert (starring Romain Duris, Charlotte Le Bon, Jalil Lespert, Camille Cottin); A Most Wanted Man an adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel for director Anton Corbijn (starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Defoe and Robyn Wright), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival; Edge of Darkness starring Mel Gibson; Lantana, which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and had a gala screening at the Toronto Film Festival and was awarded best screenplay at the Australian Film Institute Awards, Australian Critics Circle Award and Australian Writers Guild Award; Head On, winner of Best Screenplay at the Australian Writers Guild Awards, The Fisherman’s Wake and the i have not seen a FISH LIKE THIS original screenplay for Strictly Ballroom. Andrew has films in development with Tessa Ross (UK), Blumhouse (US) and miniseries in development with Matchbox Pictures. FOR MANY YEARS. NOT SINCE I WAS A BOY. THEY ARE AFTER ALL MEANT TO BE EXTINCT GABRIEL YORK FRANCIS ESTHER GREENSLADE VAN DOORNUM ‘GABRIEL YORK/HENRY LAW’ ‘ELIZABETH LAW YOUNGER’ Francis Greenslade is a well-known actor and performer. He is currently appearing in Shaun Micallef’s Esther is a NIDA graduate and has worked in film, TV and theatre for the past 20 years. She has appeared Mad as Hell on the ABC. Other TV credits include The Leftovers, Winners and Losers, The Micallef in TV shows such as Water Rats, All Saints, Neighbours and Jack Irish. She completed four short films – Program, Welcher & Welcher, Micallef Tonight, Pig’s Breakfast, SeaChange, Blue Heelers, Water Rats, Bird, To the Sea, Louisa and Overshadowed. In 2001 she worked with the Bell Shakespeare Company The Games and City Homicide. Francis has appeared in numerous productions for the Melbourne appearing in main stage productions of Anthony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, both directed Theatre Company, including The Odd Couple, Shakespeare in Love, The Madwoman of Chaillot, by John Bell. In 2005 Esther appeared in the award-winning play Whale Music with the Darlinghurst Urinetown, Things We Do for Love and Man the Balloon. For the Malthouse Theatre he has appeared in Theatre Company. While at NIDA she performed in several shows including Whale Music, Top Girls, Babes in the Wood, Optimism, The Odyssey and Tartuffe. He has also performed in many productions Boy’s Life, Touched, Chaste Maid in Cheapside and The Libertine, which was directed by Richard for Playbox Theatre, State Theatre Company of South Australia and the Magpie Theatre Company. He Cottrell. Esther also works extensively as a voice over artist. She recently worked with voice and acting recently starred in 33 Variations alongside Ellen Burstyn. His book How I Learned to Act (on the way to teacher Patsy Rodenburg and the legendary Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In 2019 Esther played not going to drama school) was published by Currency Press in 2019 and his adaptation of Dario Fo’s Jessie Cates in Iron Lung’s first show ‘night, Mother by Marsha Norman. Esther also holds a BA in Fine Accidental Death of an Anarchist was produced by Sydney Theatre Company in 2018. Arts (Photography) and an Associate Degree in Writing and Editing from RMIT. MARGARET DARCY KENT ‘GABRIEL LAW/ANDREW PRICE’ MILLS ‘ELIZABETH LAW OLDER’ Darcy is a graduate of The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in the UK, where he completed Margaret has performed with Melbourne Theatre Company (Top Girls, Boston Marriage and The his Masters in Classical Acting. His most recent work includes the national tour of Lamb (Red Stitch/ Dream Life of Butterflies); The Malthouse (The Odyssey, All Souls); La Mama (The Girl I Love, Closing Critical Stages), as well as performing at the Pop-Up Globe in productions of Romeo and Juliet and Time); Belvoir (Call of the Wild and Ship of Fools); Sydney Theatre Company (The History of Water); Much Ado About Nothing.