Deborah Hay, left, and Annika Tupper in After the Rain.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
Title: After the Rain
Directed by: Marie Farsi
Performed by: Annika Tupper, Deborah Hay, Andrew Penner
Company: Tarragon Theatre and The Musical Stage Company
Venue: Tarragon Theatre Main Space, 30 Bridgman Ave.
City: Toronto
Year: Until June 22, 2025
The time it takes to devise a work of art often begins years before the physical act of creation. Putting oil on canvas might take hours or minutes, but that belies the extensive training needed to develop techniques that allow the image to take shape. A play might begin as an idle conversation between artists that provides a spark of inspiration months down the road. And a song sometimes has to be lived in for decades before it’s given voice.
After the Rain, a new musical from Tarragon Theatre and The Musical Stage Company by lyricist/composer Suzy Wilde and librettist Rose Napoli, is a vaguely autobiographical show about a young artist named, appropriately, Suzie (Annika Tupper). Suzie has grown up on the periphery of her parents’ venerable rock band Evans Stone, performing back-up vocals and guitar at their 20th anniversary concert while mom Jean Stone (Deborah Hay) and dad Ashley Evans (Andrew Penner) argue over presenting new music and get tattoos.
After covering for her dad and teaching an initial piano lesson to Donna (also played by Hay), a wealthy bon vivant who aims to learn a single song for her bucket list, Suzie gradually discovers her own voice and path in life.
Crowd-pleasing, well-paced and entertaining, with just enough depth to feel satisfyingly meaningful, After the Rain is likely to find vibrant life on Canadian summer theatre stages for years to come.
Director Marie Farsi effectively builds the feeling of a rock show into the whole experience. The lobby is full of band photos, set lists, and other mementos; band T-shirts with tour dates are for sale, and the audience sits on two sides of a central playing space, a rarity at Tarragon. An elevated performance riser neatly opens up to create two piano lids (set designer David Boechler); the purpose of the brick walls with large windows is less obvious, but Logan Raju Cracknell’s framing lighting colourfully simulates a concert.
These trappings quickly clarify that all music will be diegetic – songs characters perform within the fictional world that relate to the show’s themes, rather than internal monologues or ensemble numbers that advance the plot.
While this robs the show of some of the structural joys and unalloyed emotional depth the classic musical form provides, it makes sense that these characters would communicate feelings obliquely through composition, allowing Wilde to present catchy, folky rock music with notes of Tom Petty, Chris Isaak and even Dolly Parton.
Tupper plays Suzie, the daughter of two rock-star parents who gradually discovers her own artistic path.Dahlia Katz/Supplied
The ensemble is instantly believable as a family and friends who have played together for many years, with tight harmonies and a practised spontaneity of banter. Penner’s Ashley has a gregarious swagger, teasing his daughter about her “stupid hot boyfriend” while sincerely teaching kindergarteners to be rock stars.
As supporting characters, Joe “Jojo” Bowden as drummer JD Kunkel mainly stays tied to the kit but provides a few quirky wisecracks. Brandon McGibbon as Ashley’s best friend Mickey Mintz sports an air of Zen nonchalance (or drug-induced brain fog?) and a crop top with fringe, one of Ming Wong’s clever rocker-chic costumes helping the band hold on to 1995. Donna’s neurodivergent teen Julian (Shaemus Swets) sharply skewers social graces, but could be more evenly woven into the show’s fabric.
Bouts of mild audience participation may be divisive; I fell somewhere in the middle between being charmed and thinking the device worked more to slow the pace than to underscore the theme of music’s ability to foster connection.
The double casting of Hay and Penner as the loud, fun, but self-centred parents and the more nurturing Donna and her quiet but supportive husband makes for a clever parallel. The mirroring effectively reinforces Napoli’s exploration of Suzie’s need for mentorship as she becomes a teacher. While Donna uses her failing health to encourage Suzie to pursue the higher education Suzie desires, Jean’s terror of aging after forgetting a lyric onstage causes her to use her daughter to keep the band relevant, prioritizing her own dreams.
The heart of the show is Suzie’s relationships with these women, and here the casting shines. Annika Tupper as Suzie is a young artist to watch, comfortable in Suzie’s constant discomfort and ready with a lovely voice and sardonic smile. Deborah Hay is terrific as Suzie’s driven, occasionally cruel mother and as the eccentric who loves Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 – tight in body and cool in voice as one, loose and warm as the other. Two standout songs feature Tupper and Hay, one a gorgeous duet about not being beholden to a mother’s dreams and another a heartfelt rock ballad demonstrating Jean’s reluctant acknowledgment that Suzie may one day eclipse her.
One of the pitfalls of a musical that centres around an artist making an important piece of music is that the tune itself is inevitably disappointing once we actually hear it. After the Rain is not immune to this problem, and it’s not helped when references to a character’s illness seem to serve mainly as an oddly Pavlovian trigger for Suzie’s artistic growth, or by a sudden late switch into metanarrative that isn’t entirely earned.
However, an otherwise satisfying ending successfully sidesteps the issue by presenting the sweet, elegant number as the beginning of an artistic journey, rather than an end.
As After the Rain reminds us, a song may take a few minutes to sing, but a lifetime to discover.
