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Three Days of Rain
by Richard Greenberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AOL DIGITAL CITY
Three Days of Rain

A drama by Richard Greenberg about children delving into their parent's past. A famous architect has died and his two children, Walker and Nan, have gotten together to go over details of their father's (Ned) will. Joining them is nervous, fidgety Pip, whose father was partner to Ned. Pip's father died years ago. Ned's will has a surprise: Pip is the main beneficiary of the estate. To solve this mystery, the play takes us back 30 years and the children play the parts of the their parents. Seeing the parents reveals a lot about how the kids got to be the way they are.
-- Daniel Bernstein, AOL Digital City, March 21, 2002

 

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NORTHERN LIGHTS
Chance "Rain" will shine!

It was a "lofty" experience! Richard Greenberg's "Three Days of Rain" - a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1998 - opens with the estranged children of Ned Janeway reuniting, just prior to the reading of his will.

In a New York loft apartment, still owned by Janeway, his son Walker discovers a journal written 35 years earlier by his dad. Walker's sister Nan - a beautifully waspish ice princess, referred to as "Zelda Fitzgerald's less stable sister" - is against reading it. Walker is looking for some insight into his parents as youngsters and won't be denied. He's hoping to find some clue as to their dreams, fears and aspirations. What he discovers are criptic notes. The first states simply: "April 3-5, 1960 - Three days of rain!" Walker is baffled that the impetus for starting this journal would be an unfavorable weather report. As with many assumptions, he would be wrong.

Currently running at The Chance theater, "Three Days of Rain" explores the relationship between friends and family, spanning the years. As children, we see the face presented to us by our parents but what were they really like as young individuals? Were they smart, confident risk takers, or were they shy, introverts who played it safe? We weren't there so we will never know. And, any clue we might stumble upon is open to wildly irrational interpretation.

Brilliantly directed by Oanh Nguyen, "Rain" is a six character play, using just three very talented actors. It premiered at the South Coast Repertory Theatre, in 1997, before going on to wide acclaim, later that year, on Broadway. Act I takes place in 1995. In addition to Walker and Nan, their life-long friend Pip appears. Their fathers were world famous architects and business partners. Each life is interestingly intertwined. Act II finds the actors in the same loft - as their parents - a generation before.

The parts of Walker and his father Ned are played by Joseph Horn. He is manic as the confused son and tormented as his stuttering father. The roles of Nan and Lina are portrayed by sensational Cecily Smith, cool as Nan and hot as Lina. Ken La Salle was Pip and then became his father Theo. Pip is slightly embarrassed by his fame as a TV actor. As Theo, he was the brash "brains" behind the patriarchal drafting duo. At their best, Horn was subtle, Smith seductive, and La Salle seemed smooth.

The stylized set by Andrew Otero, lighting by Daryl B. Hovis, and Ron Wyand's sound gave an pleasantly evocative feeling of time and place. It was Erika Ceporious' costume design, however, that showed how such a simple choice - shoes - could solidify each character's personality.

Greenberg has written a beautifully crafted piece of modern Americana. It is sensitive, fresh material sprinkled with insightful funny lines - "Being in a good mood is NOT that same as being a moron" - and had the audience listening actively to the rapid-fire delivery.

"Three Days of Rain" is about love, jealousy, beginnings and the nature of genius. There are many touching moments that will surprise you, including the revelation of the journal's criptic nature. My forecast for this production calls for favorable acting, followed by thunderous applause. But then, as Bob Dylan said: "You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows." When it comes to "Three Days of Rain" at The Chance Theater, dump your umbrella and shed your slicker - This is one play you are really going to enjoy soaking up!
--Chris Creson, Northern Lights, March 21, 2002

 

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ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
'Rain' pounds home powerful themes

Chance Theater's riveting production brings Richard Greenberg's intense 1997 drama back to Orange County, where it began.

One of the main ingredients of tragedy is seeing characters from a vantage point impossible to them.

"Three Days of Rain" achieves this quality by presenting its main characters in the here and now, describing how their parents' actions shaped them - then provides their back story in a powerful second act that shows their parents 35 years earlier, at roughly the same age. The reverse vantage point makes Richard Greenberg's drama essentially a modern tragedy.

South Coast Repertory commissioned the play in 1997 and gave it its inaugural production. The Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City brought the play to the East Coast later that year. It has played in Los Angeles at various theaters since, but The Chance Theater's new production is the first in Orange County since SCR's. Directed by troupe artistic director Oanh Nguyen, the new staging magnifies the nuances of this intense, unflinching psychological study. Its characters may not understand themselves, but by the end of "Rain," we certainly do.

Act One introduces two 20-something siblings - Walker Janeway and his older sister, Nan. Their father, famous New York architect Edmond Janeway, has passed away, and they're about to attend a reading of his will with childhood friend Philip "Pip" Wexler, whose father, Theodore, was Edmond's partner.

The opening act explores the relationships among Walker, Nan and Pip and how they felt about their parents. Our knowledge of them accumulates the same way it would as in real life - slowly, heightened only by each characters' stark monologues. After the first act reaches a logical conclusion, the set - the now-barren Manhattan loft space Edmond and Theodore shared in the early days of their partnership - is redressed. Act Two then shows Edmond (known as Ned) and Theodore (known as Theo), the humble origins that preceded their success, the personal demons plaguing each man, and the prominent role Lina, the alluring Southern girl, plays in their lives.

"Three Days of Rain" wouldn't be much of a story if there weren't severe tensions among these characters, and Greenberg has whipped up some doozies. Ned was a tight-lipped workaholic, his wife driven to drink - and worse. Nan and Pip had a high school fling. Walker's love for Pip is unspoken and unrequited.

Nan, Walker, Ned and Lina are psychologically complex. Theo and Pip provide a contrasting superficiality, yet both are articulate and, in their own way, deep. These literate characters drop numerous references to architecture, art, history, literature and philosophy. In a sense, an extensive discussion of Greek tragedy in the 1995 scenes encapsulates the entire play. We laugh and marvel at Greenberg's wit, yet rarely have we laughed at something so raw and bitter.

The nexus between the two periods is the journal Ned began keeping at the start of his career. We first see it in Walker's hands as he excitedly shows it to Nan. It's part of "Rain's" insightful approach that we gain a different view of the journal once the second act lets us see how Ned regarded it. Rain is also prominent, never used as a metaphor. It's raining in two scenes; in another, Pip describes a rainy scene from a movie that foreshadows (or is it "post"-shadows?) the titular three-day period during which Ned and Lina connect.

The script's coup, though, is that three actors portray its six characters. It's this stunning double-casting that packs "Three Days of Rain's" strongest punch. Seeing three contemporary characters first, then seeing their parents at an earlier time, is powerful enough; the same performers in both sets of roles creates resonances impossible with traditional casting.

Nguyen gets subtle, versatile performances from his three performers. Joseph Horn gives the role of the caustic, brooding intellectual Walker the twitchy physicality and palpable anxiety of a person uncomfortable inside his own skin. Cecily Smith's practical, controlled Nan, we gather, keeps a tight rein on her feelings, lest they boil over and consume her. The character's function is to remember painful events and recite them for anyone interested, a role defined in the monologue wherein she recalls a particularly traumatic day in her and Walker's childhood. Horn's transformation into the stammering, bespectacled Ned is nothing short of brilliant. His succinct young architect is as eccentric as his Walker, and his combined performances amount to an acting tour de force. Remade with a '60s coif and garb, Smith exudes Lina's sensuality, yet she soon loses the woman's engaging Southern accent and, with it, much of the role's allure. Yet Lina's tenderness toward the oddly endearing Ned is unmistakable, and her high-frequency nervous system touchingly echoes Walker's.

As Lina, Smith's chemistry with Ken LaSalle's Theo is better. LaSalle gives a distinctive enough contrast in the role - ever the temperamental genius devastatingly attractive to both Lina and Ned - but he doesn't take the character's traits far enough. He loses his temper in one scene, yet he's unconvincing as the mercurial, hard-drinking womanizer the script describes. LaSalle is far better suited to the role of the blissful Pip, so well-adjusted and seemingly shallow he inspires both annoyance and envy in both Walker and Nan, and there's a palpable, forceful attraction between Pip and Smith's Nan.

As with many of The Chance's last several productions, "Three Days of Rain" combines the talents of Andrew Otero (set design), Erika Ceporius (costumes), Darryl B. Hovis (lighting design) and Ron Wyand (sound). Separately, their skills are considerable. Combined, they put the focus on an already first-rate script and make it even better.
---Eric Marchese, Orange County Register, March 22, 2002

 

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OC WEEKLY
Three Days of Rain

In Richard Greenberg's "Three Days of Rain", a little inclement weather explodes into an emotional typhoon when three now-grown-up kids learn more about their parents than they were meant to know.

Thirty years ago, those parents, Ned and Theo, were a team of famous architects. They were married, but not to each other, and then something happened to the partnership, camouflaged by a phrase their children discover in Ned's old diary: "three days of rain." A taciturn Ned (Joseph Horn) uses the phrase as a gentlemanly reference to a betrayal that apparently marked a transformation in the business. Ned's son, Walker (also played by Horn), finds the diary and shares it with his sister, Nan (Cecily Smith), and Theo's son, Pip (Ken La Salle), at the reading of Ned's will.

Director Oanh Nguyen sets up a stark contrast in this thoughtful Chance Theater production, employing each of his actors to portray the children and their parents. It's a powerful juxtaposition -- the children are stilted and emotionally isolated, while the parents are much more expressive, at least during those duck weather days -- and it creates a powerfully intriguing imbalance, as the past becomes more real than the present. History is nothing more than educated guesses, says Greenberg, and it's easy to wonder if Ned and Theo's children will ever figure out the truth.
-- Jana J. Monji, OC Weekly, April 4, 2002

 

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