Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants.
© 1989

Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble

In Y York’s futuristic comedy RAIN. SOME FISH. NO ELEPHANTS., genetic engineering has produced a submissive nation of clones and drones. Everything is gene coded so all individuality can be obliterated, except for one stubbornly old-fashioned family trying to thaw the perpetual nuclear winter. That winter is actually an endless floodlike rainy season. The play…begins as a kind of science-fiction variation on YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU with a wildly eccentric family resolutely staying out of the mainstream. In this case, the father is a crank who has quit his scientific post in a dehumanizing laboratory to go fishing. He neglects his suicidal wife and their two very odd daughters. The catalyst for renewal is a black man, cloned to be a member of a faceless servant class. Removed from his diet of ‘stoppers’, pills that deny incentive, he becomes a rebel. As conceived by York…he is an engaging figure, awakening to his personality as well as to his racial identity…[Y York] has created a thought provoking comic parable about mankind’s indomitability. As much as anything, the play is concerned with the survival of history itself…

-- Mel Gussow, The New York Times

Potomac Theatre Project

Premiered at Atlanta's Horizon Theatre, it has gone on to productions at  the New Theatre of Brooklyn, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Potomac Theatre Project, and numerous other regional theatres, small theatres and colleges.

RepertoryTheatre of St. Louis

No play in recent memory is as genuinely intelligent, heady, insane, funny, sexy, brash, bright, loud, mean, true, glib, and fun as Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants. It’s actually all of those descriptors and more, but even our beloved English language can’t entirely capture the cracked-out enthusiasm of playwright Y York’s glowing social statement. -- Brian McLoone, Tufts Observer

Arizona Repertory Theatre

2 adult male, 1 adult female, 3 juvenile females
full-length
unit set

Tufts University

available from Broadway Play Publishing
in Plays by Y York volume 2

You Can't Take The Brave New World with You
In the family play Rain. Some Fish. No Elephants., Y York humorously creates a frightening world where all of the worst nightmares of the politically correct agenda (sexism, racial genocide, environmental devestation) are played out to ridiculous extremes. There is a not too distant into the future sensibility in this play that makes it easy for one sceptical of science fiction realities to make the leap and buy into York's satirical world. But the real clinchers are the delightful characters whose familiar strengths and foibles cast a critique on our own world, reminding one of the responsibilty we have in forging the institutions and ground rules we all must play by. It is refreshing to find such fine roles written for young women, from the most admirable scientifically minded protagonist to the most spoiled and despicable villainess. "Rain Some Fish..." succeeds (reigns) where theatrical literature is most vital, in building a social experiment that reels (fishes) one in with entertainment and an invitation to open doors to ones own mind (elephant). http://www.very-clever.com/information/dooaeudiuo

University of Arizona

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