After The Rainfall

In theatre, simplicity is not always a virtue. Often, especially at the Fringe, it is made necessary by budget and space constraints, but it would be wrong to assume that being complicated is bad. Curious Directive's After The Rainfall is as ambitious in narrative scope as it is in technical delivery, and respects the audience enough to expect them to handle a nonlinear, multi-stranded plot and enough sensory overload for three plays.

Across four different time periods, an agent of the British Empire finds and then loses a friend while conducting reconnaissance in Egypt, an art student deals with the repercussions of the Haig Pit closure as well as her brother's death, two former lovers battle it out in an Al Jazeera interview brimming with barely restrained spite, and a survivor of the Egyptian uprising makes a pilgrimage across Europe to see the Rosetta Stone.

Whereas most plays might have one overarching theme, After the Rainfall has several. This is not always to its detriment, but it does mean that some are more involving than others. The play's treatment of colonialism's pillaging of the world's treasures is deeply moving, but its larger theme—a parallel between how the societies of ants and humans operate—is less successful. Similarly, the technical gimmicks and elaborate lighting that lace the production achieve their effect half the time, but otherwise serve as a distraction. Given a little more coherence, it could be excellent, but as it is, After the Rainfall is, if sprawling, still brave and fascinating.