Players Club of Swarthmore presents Three Days of Rain

Theater: Players Club of Swarthmore
Show Title: Three Days of Rain
Opened: January 3, 2008
Seen: January 2, 2008
Reviewer: Gary Labowitz
Submitted: January 3, 2008
The Players Club of Swarthmore Theater presents “Three Days of Rain” by Richard Greenberg, directed by George Ainslie. Jan. 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 19 at 8:00 pm, Jan. 6 and 13 at 2:00 pm.
614 Fairview Ave., Swarthmore, PA

“Three Days of Rain” is a thoughtful, mature, and intriguing play. (It was nominated for the Pulizer prize in Drama.) It is at times lightly funny; at other times it is heavily concerned with the human condition. It is always layered with a Greek-like drama of challenging triangle-relationships shown in two generations of an extended family.

The play displays the relationships of two generations of two men and a woman. In the first act the sons of two architects (Theo and Ned), partners, and the daughter of one (Ned’s) are introduced. Or rather, they introduce themselves, each as a single person Greek chorus, telling the audience who they are and very briefly their viewpoints on the situation they find themselves in: the recent death of the last surviving architect, Ned Janeway. This generation is dominated by the major character (Walker), the unpredictable, unfocused son of Ned, and with his sister (Nan), and the son of the father’s partner, Theo Wexler, (Pip). The relationships between each pair of characters is developed through very pithy dialog, at times silly or funny and at times erudite. Walker and Nan have a family conflict of low intensity. Walker and Pip are conflicted over the disposition of “The House,” the first commission of the fledgling architects decades earlier and the homestead of the Janeway family. Nan and Pip have an unspoken history going back to their teenage years. A mystery (the source for the play’s title) is introduced by Walker’s finding of his father’s journal containing a terse entry (“Three days of rain.”). Walker is troubled by many things he does not know or understand about his father.

Act two takes us back to the architects Theo and Ned at the start of their relationship and their first commission, a design for the Janeway’s family house. “The House” is the connecting external link between the two acts. This earlier generation is dealing with the traumas of beginnings. Pip and his girlfriend, Lina, have a conflict of low intensity. Ned and Theo are conflicted over the creation process of “The House;” Theo doing the “creative” work, and Ned doing the “critical” work. Lina and Ned have a developing relationship in the absence of Theo during three days of rain. (That’s a hint!) They will eventually marry.

The overall message is that family generations have a mysterious kind of separation which prevents later generations from truly knowing the previous ones. At the same time, there is a patterning which causes each following generation to recapitulate aspects of the previous one. Since the play ends leaving us in the past, it might occur to the audience that we don’t know what happens to the characters in the “now” of Act I. A little thought might bring us to realize that they will go on with their lives, separating further from each other, having learned something of the past generation’s mystery, but remaining ignorant of most of what really happened and what it means.

The play has many clues for the audience which are never revealed in word or deed by the characters: the father’s terseness in speech and journal entries is commented upon; we learn in Act II that he stuttered. Is this an explanation? Other tenuous clues and connections are sprinkled through the play, such as the son Walker’s “mental” stuttering, and the terminated relationships of Theo/Lina and Pip/Nan in both generations.

The intimacy of the theater, straightforward lighting, and understated stage settings for the two eras in which the action takes place give this play a good home where it can spin out its message for our relaxed enjoyment.

The actors, Sean Roach (Walker/Ned), Heather Dyas-Fried (Nan/Lina), and Benjamin Kanes (Pip/Theo) play against each other well, giving smooth movement to the development, and varying the interactions in each of the pairs of the triangles. I found the character of Walker the strongest of the six, but each one, in truth, took charge at various points of the play and it would be hard to single out one from the others as the starring role. A heavy hand of a director (George Ainslie) is not felt; the actors were natural in their characterizations. The play is solid, even if it ends rather abruptly. We’ll have to give three stars to the cast (one each), a star to the director, and a star to the play. It’s an all star show!