Theatre / When The Rain Stops Falling, by Andrew Bovell, directed by Chris Baldock. At Belconnen Arts Centre. Until May 17. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

When the Rain Stops Falling is a dark and splendid play that starts with a fish and ends with a family.

It’s a long time unravelling and you have to stay focused, but it’s a riveting piece of work that manages to meld Uluru and the Coorong and that long road across the Hay Plains with a much more buttoned up London, all as an essential background to understanding some pretty brutal family dynamics.

And Mockingbird Theatre Company, under Chris Baldock’s surefooted direction, does an excellent job of it all.

In 2039 in Australia Gabriel York (Baldock) anticipates a meeting with the son Andrew (Dyllan Ormazabal) that he hardly knows.

The play then works backwards and forwards, between London and Australia, delving into the family and its secrets. The older Elizabeth Law (Liz St Clair Long) keeps a tight hold on what her younger self (Ruth Hudson) discovers about her husband Henry (Zac Bridgman).

That triggers son (Leonidas Katsanis) Gabriel’s search for his father’s traces in Australia.

That further triggers revelations that involve young Gabrielle York (Jayde Dowhy) and cannon into her later self (Jess Beange) and her relationship with a bemused Joe Ryan (Bruce Hardie).

It’s complex stuff with no straight timeline, staged by director and designer Baldock with a real feeling for the possibilities of a setting with the audience on four sides.

Hard to single out people in what is a piece of intense teamwork, but St Clair Long as the older Elizabeth, clutching secrets to herself, has a wonderfully dominating presence and Dowhy and Katsanis as the young couple bring a lightness to the action of a play that verges on the gothic.

Mockingbird is fast developing the flexible staging space at Belco Arts into a focus for fascinating theatre.

Fourth time lucky, Rain finally arrives for director