Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants. Good Show.

by Chepe Lockett
(original uncut version)

This is a season marked by odd topics for comedies -- Baker College's The Real Thing, about adultery; the Rice Players' Woman in Mind, about a mental breakdown; and now, Main Street Theater's Houston premiere production of Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants., about totalitarian future societies, genetic engineering, mind-controlling drugs, and species extinction.

Playwright Y York's comedy is as odd as her name, or the work's title, implies. Set "sometime in the future" and "somewhere along the Chesapeake Bay," the play's world is one in which manmade climatic change, including the greenhouse effect and industrial pollution, have melted the polar icecaps, producing an everlasting rain and the reduction or extinction of most animal species (thus, Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants.).

Humans are little better off in this world -- a totalitarian world government ensures that its people are "gene-coded" to make them easier to rule. Men and women are programmed to self-destruct at ages fifty and sixty, respectively, in psychological breakdown and suicide. Genetic "imperfections" are ruthlessly destroyed. Citizens are given "stoppers," drugs which suppress independent thought and emotion to produce blissful, unbroken, neutered calm. Black men have been reduced to drug-controlled, downtrodden, programmed butlers, and black women have been eliminated, leaving only stored zygotes to maintain the supply.

York's play follows one family that tries to retain an independent life in the midst of this madness. Gene (Steve Garfinkel), the government's former chief geneticist, has managed to use his power to eke out some small freedoms for his family, such as freedom from chemical "stoppers." His wife Esther (Susan Madigan), despite the compulsive behavior (cleaning, in her case) that her gene-coding produces as she ages, still keeps her mental freedom and enjoyment of old-fashioned sex.

Gene and Esther's two children, born "naturally" and not decanted from the government's gene-banks, are free of genetic tinkering, but thus find other problems. June's (Penny Alfrey) exceptional intelligence, more than coded females', leads her to a lonely position as the only female geneticist in her father's laboratory. Teenaged daughter Emily's (Elizabeth Imle) malformed foot would have earned her a speedy execution as "imperfect" if Gene had not rushed her out of the hospital and doctored the paperwork. Now she dreams of an older, more free world, based on the garbled historical tales Gene remembers for her.

What domestic bliss is possible in such a world is soon marred by Emily's snobbish young contemporary Julia (Jessica Boone), daughter of a government inspector, who makes Emily the birthday present of "Blackie" (Albert Linton) -- a black man, rigidly trained for service and obedience, and drugged not to think or feel. It is the subversion of this potential spy and the revelations about the human spirit that ensue that produce the rest of the plot.

The summary above might seem almost tragic, and indeed, Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants. has more than a few elements of a drama. But even among its serious and through-provoking subjects, the play maintains many funny moments, and many poignant scenes. The "Elephant Game" ritual Emily leads the family through at the news of every extinction, the garbled history of mighty black warriors in olden days that she relates to Blackie, even Esther's joy in endless compulsive cleaning, are both touching and, ultimately, funny. Especially if we take the Shakespearean definition of a comedy as that which illuminates the human condition, York's play more than qualifies.

Main Street Theater gives a fine production, as usual. Steve Garfinkel's puckish Gene, dancing and giggling his anarchic way across stage, gives the play much of its energy. MST veteran Susan Madigan's performance as Esther deserves high praise for its sensitive depiction of a woman bravely struggling against genetically programmed oblivion. Penny Alfrey, as June, plays the voice of caution, warning the family of society's strictures and thus showing us how much happier, and more dangerous, the life she leads really is. As such, she sometimes seems stiff, but loosens up nicely for her more sensitive moments. And Albert Linton's Blackie shines in this production: his progress from blank automaton to a complex personality, capable of soaring dreams and of grief and rage at the government's destruction of his race, is one of the more satisfying elements of the play.

Elizabeth Imle, as Emily, brings a winsome charm to her role, especially in the touching "games" she invents, such as the "Elephant Game" which marks each new extinction. Yet she and Jessica Boone, as Julia, never seem to spark in their frequent confrontations, and Boone never achieves the menace she needs to project as the main threat to the family. The dread which should have precipitated the ending was simply not there, not in Boone nor in any of the other characters. Whether this was the fault of first-night jitters or difficulties in interpretation, I cannot say, but it weakened an otherwise fine performance.

Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants. is a fine combination of drama and comedy, filled with a good mix of entertaining gags and serious philosophy. The Main Street Theater production, despite certain weaknesses, makes for a fine evening of theater in a nearby and inexpensive location. I recommend it.

Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants. plays Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 PM and Sundays at 4:00 PM, on an open-ended run through January, at Main Street Theater, located at 2540 Times Boulevard, just off Kirby in the Rice University Village. Student ticket prices range from $8.50 to $14.50. For further information or reservations, call 524-6706.