Bring The Rain

Ian Meadows' Between Two Waves began life as a feature film script that passed under the eyes of Griffin Theatre Company's artistic director (and director of the upcoming production of Meadows' play) Sam Strong, when he was working as a literary associate at Belvoir. As a result of that, Strong ended up working as a script editor on the feature film script and, as a result of his eventual appointment as Griffin AD, that script sidestepped from screen to stage as a part of the Griffin Studio development program.

“I was keen to entice people back away from the screen – there was a bit of a trend that was happening where good playwrights or young playwrights were kind of getting co-opted a bit into TV and film writing, and Ian has had some quite successful screenwriting credits,” reveals Strong. “So from the first moment I worked on the feature film script I kind of had my eye on it as a play, so it was wonderful to get the chance to turn it into a play. It's quite an interesting and exciting challenge to evolve a story that is quite epic and cinematic and with a multi-location scope into a more compressed, or condensed, and intensified theatrical version.”

Meadows has described it as “a romantic comedy about the end of the world” and Strong concurs, elaborating, “I think that's one thing that's really important to remember about the piece that while it does engage with climate change, it's absolutely not an issue play; this isn't a play about climate change, this is a play about a relationship and about a particular individual dealing with the future, and a couple dealing with the future. This is not a lecture, there's barely any science in this play, and what's beautiful about it is it kind of interweaves the global and the personal, it takes a massive global-sized question and reduces it down to its emotional core. It makes the global local, and it makes the geopolitical personal.”

All clarification aside, a play with a title like that, and commentary on global warming, however small, requires one thing: water. “It is not inappropriate for a play that is, in some ways, dealing with climate change, that there might be a little bit of rain in there somewhere,” says a coy Strong. “I don't think anyone's made it rain in the Stables – well, the roof has leaked, the real roof has leaked; air conditioners have leaked, during And No More Shall We Part, some people thought it was intentional, like the space was crying – the roof has probably leaked during heavy rain, but we're going to try and replicate the accident by design; this time it will be intentionally weeping.”

There's been an ongoing desire under Strong's direction to really make the most of the comparatively small and rather odd-shaped SBW Stables space when it comes to design and, with the David Fleischer's design plans for Between Two Waves and Strong's barely contained excitement, it looks like they're on the money. “It's an ambitious story, in its scope, and the show has to match that ambition in what we're trying to do in there, which is always exciting,” explains Strong. “And one of the things we've attempted to do with design in the Stables is make people come in each time and go, 'Well, how have you done this?' So I think this show will definitely fit that bill.”

WHAT: Between Two Waves

WHERE & WHEN: Friday 5 October to Wednesday 17 November. Griffin Theatre SBW Stables