Summer Rain is a musical with book and lyrics by Australian playwright Nick Enright and music by Terence Clarke.
Set in New South Wales, Australia, it's Boxing Day 1945 in Turnaround Creek, an outback town. The dust settles as the town nurses their Christmas hangover. Harold Slocum and his family of the Slocum's Travelling Tent Show are down on their luck and become stranded. They're broke and desperate for an audience; they end up in Turnaround Creek. To the country folk, the prospect of a show is a welcome diversion, but Barry the publican at the Shamrock is strangely unwelcoming. He remembers the last time the Slocums were in the district. Emotions run high and the sedentary life of the town is disturbed by the remembrance of an illicit affair. The musical represses new life breathed into the rural community, and is altogether humorous and sensitive.
Background
Originally written in 1983 for Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art for the graduating students, the musical has since had professional productions: twice in Sydney (Sydney Theatre Company in 1989 and 2005) and once in Brisbane (Queensland Theatre Company in 1997). Its many amateur and student productions include Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2000, University of Wollongong in 2004, Australian Institute of Music in 2014 and Shellharbour's Roo Theatre in 2014.
Although no cast recording of has been made, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a live performance of the 1989 Sydney production on radio. Performers such as Nancye Hayes and David Campbell have recorded the song "Once in a Blue Moon" in solo albums. A 1994 television special on Australian musicals incorporated performances of both "Once in a Blue Moon" and "You Might Miss the Mongrel". The book and lyrics were published by Currency Press.
Reception
Variety said of Sydney Theatre Company's production "the women's roles especially are well-written and the numerous reworkings have ensured the story is tight and focused".
Lauren's Theatre Reviews described Roo Theatre's production of the show as "certain very enjoyable for the most part" and "the script has its ups and down, but ultimately is full of charm and a wide variety of main characters", with praise going to the story's characterisation and mix of both drama and comedy. The music of the show received mixed reception, the review noting feeble songs in the playlist. It listed stand-out examples of the score and said that the rest are unmemorable.
Academia says that the show "honours the musical styles and experiences of a previous Australian generation. This chapter explores the ironic, parodic way that it creates the Australian musical that never existed, a generation after it should have. Australian audiences of the 1940s and 1950s loved the Hollywood musical, and the great American Broadway musicals of the period. It was also a time when the old vaudeville troupes that travelled outback Australia were dying. The songs in Summer Rain deliberately reference both Hollywood and Australian traditions, lightly parodying them in 'Watch the Puddles', or improving them in 'The Casuarina Tree'. At the same time, Enright's musical presents a more modest and laconic Australian attitude, tongue in cheek, and always light-hearted. This story of renewal, forgiveness and recovery after war and drought retrospectively promises a better future for the postwar generation. This chapter analyses some of the patterns of parody and allusion in the play, while arguing that its detailed reference to the language and history of the period prevents it from becoming mere pastiche, and that its humour undercuts its sentimentality."