BWW Reviews: SCR Revives THREE DAYS OF RAIN

There is perhaps a certain truth in the adage that we as adults are simply the end product of a combined cocktail of biologically-inherited traits, as well as the many environmental factors that invade our lives as young children that are carried into maturity. After all, parents are our first teachers, these fate-handed instructors in the school of life that, along the way, shape our personalities. They manifest in how we react to things, what behaviors we take on, and even into what motivates us in our daily lives.

Why are some people more nurturing or calmer in a crisis, while others easily come apart at the seams or have full-on meltdowns? Why are some people more outwardly confident while others retreat and shy away? And are any of these characteristics really embedded by how people have been particularly parented? By this logic, is it fair to ask... if we know more about our parents, do we learn more about ourselves?

In South Coast Repertory's new revival of Richard Greenberg's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play THREE DAYS OF RAIN—which had its originally-commissioned World Premiere production in this very same theater back in 1997—these questions are tested in our observations of three interlinked individuals and the mysterious generational gap between them and their parents.

After successful debuts on Broadway and in London's West End—including a press-hyped 2006 revival starring Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, and a pre-Hangover Bradley Cooper—Greenberg's play has, what Oprah calls, a "full-circle moment" with its return engagement, continuing through June 12.

The play opens in 1995 in a seemingly uninhabited, shuttered studio flat in NYC's Greenwich Village, reeking of dust, age and, perhaps, some interesting history. Though quite unkempt, it's certainly a chic space, lined with large windows and original brick walls that real estate urbanites would kill for. Smack dab in the center of the scuffed floor is a disheveled mattress, the kind one expects in abandoned structures that have been invaded by homeless squatters or shelter-seeking runaway teens.

So, as expected, we soon learn that this empty living space isn't so empty after all. In comes backpacker Walker Janeway (Kevin Rahm of TV's Desperate Housewives), who briefly breaks the fourth wall and introduces himself directly to the audience—a method used by the other two characters as well (though, curiously, this first-person narration is never utilized again beyond those introductory monologues).

Orating a mile-a-minute like an escapee from the Charlie Sheen school of consciousness—but with definitely more droll witticisms—he rambles matter-of-factly that he has actually been squatting in the vacant apartment for a little while. You see, the flat was also once the former home and workplace of his distant father Ned Janeway and Ned's business partner Theo Wexler. Together, Ned and Theo were world-renowned architects, whose reportedly yin-yang creative partnership produced several familiar buildings that span many cities. The pair are, however, most particularly famous for their collaborative work on the celebrated "Janeway House." Though Ned's creative infamy and success continued even long after Theo's death in 1966, Walker still sees the man simply as someone he never really knew.

During his stay at The Loft so far, Walker has been discovering a few artifacts from his father Ned's past, including Ned's personal journal, full of vague sentences and cryptic thoughts. Still, it's an exciting find, considering Walker has always felt a bit distant from his father, who for him was this intensely quiet, unassuming man. While growing up, Walker felt that Ned never gave him the time of day, nor could he even muster a word or two for pleasantries. Will this journal serve as a gateway into the mind of the father he knows so little about? He's already wildly perplexed by the boring first entry in the book: "1960. April 3 through 5. Three Days of Rain." Is it mere succinctness or a sampling of his quiet madness?

Walker certainly couldn't be any more different than his father. A manic but street-smart creative thinker with a penchant for spontaneous getaways and living a nomadic, hyper-kinetic existence, Walker tends to either argue a point to a frustrating fault, or haphazardly bolt whenever disconcerting situations arise.  The latter perhaps best explains why he has spent the past year aimlessly wandering Europe to, of course, "find himself," much to the incessant worry of his much more grounded, protective older sister Nan (Susannah Schulman).

It turns out—as we learn from Nan—that about a year ago, Walker abruptly disappeared immediately after their father's funeral, an act that clearly still resonates with her. Reserved and much more soft-spoken, Nan, in a way, has taken on the role as his de facto mother figure, mostly because of the ongoing mental deterioration of their own mother (whom, Walker humorously characterizes as "Zelda Fitzgerald's less stable sister").

Thus, when Nan shows up to meet with her brother at their father's old loft, she is quite relieved that he's alive, but is also both disturbed by his callous, vagabond lifestyle, and is more cautiously hesitant to extend any sense of care freely towards him, knowing he may just nonchalantly brush it aside once again.

On this particular day, though, the awkward reunion has a purpose: the siblings—along with their handsome childhood friend Pip Wexler (Brendan Hines of TV's Lie To Me), a semi-famous TV actor who's also the son of their father Ned's former business partner Theo—are meeting with a lawyer for the long-delayed reading of Ned's Will. While Nan is clearly carrying a smitten torch for Pip, Walker tries his best to conceal an air of jealousy and contempt towards the otherwise charming friend of the Janeway family.

Alas, Walker's disdain for Pip is further exacerbated by the revelation that the coveted "Janeway House" is not, in fact, bequeathed to Ned's children, but rather to Pip! Walker's hopes of finally settling down and getting the house as a sort of consolation for having an "absent" father are extinguished in one sentence. Already envious that Pip had a closer, friendlier relationship with Walker's father over the years than he did, Walker fumes at the whole debacle, and places the blame for the misappropriation of the inheritance squarely on Pip, even to the point of accusing him of manipulating Ned's affections. To his credit, Pip too is genuinely confused as to why he ended up with the house, something he's not even interested in having.

More arguments erupt, prompting a few unexpected surprise revelations that send the trio into dizzying spirals of confusion and reflection. Turning to their father's journal for possible answers, Nan and Walker begin to question and postulate the motivations their parents had in their youth, and how those actions have shaped who they all have become. Walker's investigation into certain passages in the journal certainly leads to some interesting theories, but like most situations in life, things aren't always what they seem—even if they're committed to ink and paper.

Luckily, through the magic of theater, the play's entire second act brazenly flashes back to April 1960 to help illuminate the revelations and assumptions that were so keenly set up in the previous act. It takes place right around the time when the "Janeway House" was being designed, and also the time that prompted Ned's concise first journal entry about inclement weather.

This time, the same trio of actors are playing their parents: Rahm switches over to play Walker's father, Ned, who turns out to be a socially-awkward but skillfully talented young architect, cursed with a debilitating stutter that's both endearing and heartbreaking to watch. Schulman takes on Lina, Walker and Nan's gypsy-chic mother, an outspoken Southern Belle with big hair and a big attitude, and an accent straight out of Steel Magnolias. Hines portrays Pip's bespectacled father Theo, a debonair, slightly pretentious artiste who turns out to be more concerned with style than substance.

To reveal any more about the three characters and what happens to them in the second act would spoil too much of the play's overall arc, especially for those sitting in their seats with a mental checklist of the things that their grown children assumed about them in the first act. The three of them certainly have an interesting, at times dysfunctional, dynamic—which is all the more riveting to witness when many assumed expectations are shattered by veiled truths. I myself made my own speculations in the first half, and was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong many times.

As intelligent a play THREE DAYS OF RAIN purports to be, I feel that its very smug smartness is the reason that it has a slight tendency to feel achingly sluggish, particularly in the conversation-heavy first act. The slow-moving start could also be attributed to the very nature of secretive characters exchanging constrained conversations that are filled with tones shrouded in mystery and coyness. Nothing is said outright until a shouting blow-up towards the first act's tail end, where a few revelations come busting out like the air out of a popped balloon. The play truly wakes up at this point, setting us up for the answers that are powerfully (and sometimes humorously) unveiled in the second act. With all sorts of veiled secrets just bubbling under the surface, it's no wonder that it's easy to get a bit antsy waiting for the play to start picking up the pace, which it does so eventually.

Under the careful direction of SCR Founding Artistic Director David Emmes, the play's homecoming on the stage that gave birth to it comes off as a thoughtful, progressively well-executed new production that is accented by some really terrific, well-acted performances. Greenberg certainly has a gift for expressive language, peppering his dialogue with plenty of amusing wit and a searing realism that is challenging but, eventually, fruitful to watch. The first half feels like the audience has to work a little harder to connect with the characters. The real payoff, though, happens in the second act, when deeper emotions become the focus of the drama.

But more than anything, the play allows all three actors to marvelously morph from one end of the personality spectrum to the other between the time-jumping acts. This is most evident of all in Rahm's superb, riveting work as, first, the frenzied vagabond Walker, followed by his empathy-baiting turn as Walker's father Ned in the more emotionally-compelling second act. Not once did Rahm ever make Ned feel like just another stock stereotype of a nervous stutterer with crippling shyness. There's a beautifully tragic well of unearthed emotions just emanating from the actor with each line reading. Under his masterful acting, the character feels the most emotionally-connected of all, even though his character has the hardest time expressing his feelings (causing his future son to feel his distance). It's such an amazing contrast from his portrayal of the more outspoken Walker, too.

His co-stars turn in some fine performances as well. Schulman seems to be enjoying letting loose in the second act as Lina, the saucy transplant from the South caught between two men with varying degrees of creative and social abilities. Schulman's Lina is certainly quite a spitfire, the complete 180-degree antithesis of Lina's more reserved daughter Nan in the first act. Schulman plays them both well, but certainly gets to be more "showy" in her 1960's persona, where her character's deep-down aching need for a stable relationship is given a chance to blossom.

In the first act, Hines' dashing Pip—who, of course, happens to be a TV actor for a living—is the epitome of a confident man blessed with smoldering good looks and an effortless swagger. Without an ounce of irony, Pip knows he's well-liked and will unlikely apologize for it. So, it's quite believable that he has formed theories of his own as to why Walker has quite a distaste for him. Hines then resurfaces in the second act as the moodier Theo. Though Hines does get a bit overshadowed by his co-stars in the second act, he noticeably makes an impact whenever either of his characters enters the stage, however briefly the scenes may be.

Along with the realistic set design by Thomas Buderwitz, moody lighting by Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, and era-appropriate clothing by Holly Poe Durbin, THREE DAYS OF RAIN is visually impressive without being obnoxiously so. And, yes, it does rain quite a bit on the SCR stage during the play.

Overall, SCR's revival of THREE DAYS OF RAIN is a fairly commendable new production, elevated even more by its praiseworthy cast. The play really taps into one's curiosities over the histories of our own parents and what life-changing moments they've embarked on to shape who we eventually become as adults. If you're fortunate enough to know the real lives and unfiltered truths about the people that raised you, then, good for you. You're certainly way better off than these misinformed folks in the beginning of the play.

Follow this reviewer on Twitter: @cre8ivemlq

Photos from THREE DAYS OF RAIN by Henry DiRocco/SCR. From top: Kevin Rahm (left) & Brendan Hines argue in the rain; Hines with Susannah Schulman; Rahm (left) & Hines discuss designs;  Schulman comforts Rahm (reclined).

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Performances of Richard Greenberg's THREE DAYS OF RAIN continue at South Coast Repertory through June 12.

Tickets, priced from $28 to $66, can be purchased online at www.scr.org, by phone at (714) 708-5555 or by visiting the box office at 655 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa.

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