Vancouver theatre artists get physical in It’s Raining (It’s Gonna Get Wet) at Vines Art Festival
The new outdoor piece by Chloe Payne celebrates the West Coast’s most complained-about weather
It’s Raining (It’s Gonna Get Wet) ensemble members Sena Yurika (far left), Krys Yuan, and David Underhill.
It’s Raining (It’s Gonna Get Wet) runs at Vines Art Festival’s STL’A7SHN-CHET – OUR FEAST on August 14 at Trout Lake Park.
WHEN THEATRE ARTIST Chloe Payne was about to move to Vancouver from Toronto a few years ago, people warned her about the rain. Some questioned whether she’d be able to live in such a wet, grey place. Granted, the Ottawa native wasn’t accustomed to so much downfall, but she’s hardly bothered by it. She’d rather have rain than freezing temperatures. And the precipitation that prevails on the West Coast inspired her to make a new piece that will premiere at Vines Art Festival.
Payne created It’s Raining (It’s Gonna Get Wet) with ensemble members Sena Yurika, Krys Yuan, and David Underhill.
“We were just fascinated and excited by this part of Vancouver living that is kind of taken for granted,” Payne says in a phone interview with Stir. “Nine months out of the year, it rains here constantly. The concept came to me when I was out on one of my rainy hikes in Stanley Park….I started taking into account the sounds and the smells and the sights.
“This is something we usually think of as an inconvenience and an annoyance but that so essential to life,” she says. “And what better example than right now…when the land is on fire? I just got inspired by something that seemed kind of underappreciated.”
In the making of It’s Raining (It’s Gonna Get Wet), each artist went out into the rain to collect observations. They took notes of what it smelled and felt like; got audio clips of what it sounded like; and captured videos of things like raindrops falling off leaves or a single drop plopping into a puddle. “So many of these observations seemed run of the mill, something you would see every day,” Payne says. “We wanted to explore: how does this become exceptional?”
Payne, who is a graduate of prestigious physical theatre school École Philippe Gaulier in Paris, uses physical comedy, improvisation, and text in her work, with the goal of creating work that’s as funny and relevant as it is poignant. (Her first play, Fake Nerd Girl, was produced professionally in Newfoundland and Toronto and ran at festivals in Stratford, London, and Kingston.) Here, she and the team took their observations and transposed them into physical movement. That single raindrop falling into a puddle? The actors become a raindrop and fall into a puddle. Or they physicalize the movement of clouds and “how a good downpour almost has this regal quality of traversing the land”.
“The creation of this work is heavily influenced by that training [in physical theatre] with an emphasis on image, play, and dynamic movement,” Payne says. “It’s very much about visual storytelling.”
The humour and lightness come in the form of relatable experiences like an umbrella that won’t open or one that breaks. And while there’s humour, the team zooms out for broader contemplation of bigger issues.
“A raindrop is part of a rainstorm which is part of a weather system which is part of the climate,” Payne says. “What about the climate? What happens when there’s too much rain, when it becomes a flood or not enough and it becomes a drought?
“What I love about physical theatre is that it transcends language” she says. “We can convey so much just through gesture.”
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