Review: When it Rains (SummerWorks)

The Power of Visuals

by Christian Baines

Alan and Anna are siblings whose respective marriages are both on the brink of disaster. The key difference? Anna knows it, though much of the problem may lie within her own head.

When It Rains is a story about life’s most universal realities – love, sex, birth, death – all vividly explored by the innovative use of projections in lieu of any specific set or lighting. The piece rarely employs set pieces any more complicated than two chairs, allowing its four highly talented cast-members and designer Nick Bottomley’s graphic novel-inspired imagery to propel the narrative.

And what imagery it is, lifting the play’s everyday subject matter to a slightly more stylized plane that sets it apart from other works of a similar theme. The key strength of When It Rains is that it never allows this device to become the star. Each new visual exists only to advance the story or flesh out some character detail or motivation the show is otherwise unable to explore within its lean 70 minutes.

That said, When It Rains exposes its shortcomings in the relationship between Anna and her French husband, Louis. While Anna’s neuroticism is well-established, her response to Louis’ alleged infidelity feels oddly hard-line for such a flaky character. For that matter, Louis’ response to his crisis carries little explanation beyond a need to be free. Perhaps in a longer play, there might have been time to explore and understand such an obtuse explanation. Not so in When It Rains, and when the story reaches its biggest twist, the scandal feels more quaint than thrilling. 

Despite these narrative black holes, When It Rains is a modest, but satisfying triumph of technology serving story, rather than the other way round, and is a worthy, innovative addition to your Summerworks diary.

When It Rains plays at the Factory Theatre until August 19.