‘Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea’ Review: Wobbly Whimsy
Rorschach's revisionist fairy tale 'Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea' makes for airy, witty romance and often soggy farce.
Intertwining fables with visions of literary and queer history, Julia Izumi’s Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea (★★☆☆☆) deconstructs Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, then carefully reassembles its components into a bright, whimsical new fable reframing the romance between human and a being that longs to be human.
Here, it’s a perky Little Rain Cloud with a soul, represented in Gregory Keng Strasser’s colorfully-designed production at Rorschach Theatre by a charming puff of tulle with eyes, worn on the head of performer Sydney Dionne.
Peering down at the ground during a storm, Rain Cloud sees humanity blanketed by umbrellas, but one human stands out, Ralmond (Jordan Brown), who soaks in the storm. He loves the rain, the Rain Cloud thinks aloud, and she loves the rain, so she loves him.
Thus begins Rain Cloud’s pursuit of Ralmond, and her wish to be human, so that he might love her back. But there’s another snag in their romance: Ralmond’s girlfriend Midi (Janine Baumgardner), a mayoral assistant with her feet set on terra firma. Midi hates the rain. So of course, hers is the voice the playwright uses most pointedly to puncture the conventions of fairy tales like Andersen’s, which, as Midi reminds Ralmond, ended none too well for the Little Mermaid.
The play even brings in the purported writer of The Little Rain Cloud, dissembling Dolan (Nick Martin), who hopes to keep his fable on track, but sees it constantly interrupted by all-too truthful scenes from the life of another writer, Hans Christian Andersen (Martin). Absorbed into his own story, Andersen pleads his love, or infatuation, in letters to various women and men, including bosom buddy Edvard (Colum Goebelbecker).
Based on missives the 19th-century Danish author dedicated to unrequited and requited loves in his life, the letter readings — with Martin opposite various actors in the cast performing the respective objects of affection — whip through the production like breaths of fresh air. In those scenes, Izumi’s intentions, and the shifting layers of meta-storytelling, meet honest, affecting performances, particularly Martin’s.
Elsewhere, Strasser and company are dealing in a fairy-tale farce that often falls flat where it should float gaily. Sarah Beth Hall’s set design of cartoon-bubble clouds and white umbrellas suspended in blue sky provides a nice palette for fun and games, and Rooster Skylar Sultan’s props and Alexa Cassandra Duimstra’s costumes are cute without being cutesy. But few of the players roaming this fantasyland move with the lightness to keep the comedy aloft.
Dionne creates an engagingly anthropomorphized protagonist of her Little Rain Cloud, giddy to be alive, and seen by Ralmond. But faring best in finding the show’s whimsical tone is Arika Thames, as Bessie, the funny cow friend whom Rain Cloud consults on questions of love. Jordanna Hernandez, as a modern version of the fairy tale maiden, also ably blends satirical humor and breezy romance.
Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea: Nick Martin — Photo: Ryan Maxwell
Strasser’s staging adopts a few devices to toggle between the play’s disparate tones and storylines, from a tolling bell to signal the switch to the writer’s tête-à-têtes with his lovers, to a crack of thunder for turns back to Ralmond and Midi.
More importantly, the eight-person ensemble has to navigate the play’s hairpin turns, sometimes into interludes of racing farce, but they’re not uniformly up to the task, and where a few of them stumble, the whole, light concoction sometimes falls. Still, sometimes it flies, as in the final transporting image of a mermaid floating out to sea on waves of white umbrellas.
Rorschach Theatre’s Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea runs through April 16 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $10 to $45. Call 202-399-7993, or visit www.rorschachtheatre.com.
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