Review: Three Days of Rain by Penfold Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
This play by Penfold Theatre is a gem. Coming after their play The Last Five Years in January of this year, it confirms that the Penfold company has a vision and a talent for choosing and staging pieces that fit it.
Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain might just as well have been titled Two Generations or Hopes and Enigmas, because those three days are mentioned only in a scribbled note in a diary. They become emblematic after the death of the man who wrote them, a famous and successful New York architect, when his children realize that those were the same three days of a family catastrophe from which they have never recovered.
Through the grace of theatre we discover this story in displaced time -- somewhat as was the case in The Last Five Years. Here, the voyage is in only two steps. The first act occurs in a disused apartment in 1995. Walker and Nan, a brother and sister in their early 30s, meet there before the reading of their father's will. They encounter their childhood friend Pip, the son of their father's partner. The second act gives us their parents at the same age -- two aspiring male architects Ned and Theo, and Lila, the woman who became the mother of Walker and Nan.
Greenberg's text is rich in image and imagination. He creates a small world of gifted but vulnerable and uncertain characters in both generations. The younger ones are backward looking, seeking explanations; the older generation, in act two, strives with anxiety and apprehension toward the future. Greenberg gives us the elements of a solution, but in such a way as to remind us that there is really no single simple story or solution for the thirty-five years of events separating these scenes. Causes are inchoate; personal history arises amidst unexpected events; we are left to formulate our own explanations and myths.
The first person we meet is Walker, intense, distracted and irresponsible, an eloquent but unfulfilled dropout. He disappeared for months and could not be located for the funeral. His sister Nan is tightly wound and indignant, and their clash has the familiarity of an oft repeated sibling dynamic. Walker has found their father's diary and has searched obsessively for explanations there. Nan wants to hear none of it. Childhood acquaintance Pip appears. He joins the discussion in good-hearted clueless fashion, blundering into some comic blurted-out confessions. Later, in a scene that occurs after the reading of the will, we learn of an unexplained and perhaps inexplicable bequest which leaves them all at a loss.
Act two gives us the back story, with events, relationships and characters very different from those the children in 1995 have constructed. Our pleasure is both in the transformation of the received story and in the transformations worked by these three talented and appealing actors.
Sean Martin's contained portrayal of the careful, studied and slightly stuttering Ned, the father, reveals how vividly he impressed us in the first act as intense, neurotic Walker, the son.
Nathan Jerkins portrays son Pip and father Theo as equally talented but in different endeavors. Jerkins makes the son affable, confident and naive, amazed by his own success, while he portrays the father as a knot of frustration and intellectual intensity. As one student commented to him during the Sunday night talkback, "I really liked the way you played the father and the son as just alike -- except that they were different!"
I was initially put off by Sarah Gay's staccato delivery as sister Nan, a character who appears ritually linear in reaction to her brother's brilliant, loopy conversation. She softened with the arrival of Pip, and I realized that I had been reacting negatively to the character instead of to the actress. In act two as Lila, the lush lady between the two architects, Gay is extravagant, humorous, and mistress of a rich Southern accent -- an notable vocal accomplishment for a Canadian!
Director Ryan Crowder has my appreciation for choosing these actors and mediating the process resulting in their remarkable performances.
The Penfold Theatre Company convinces with their zeal, sensitivity and sophistication. Had we but world enough and time, Three Days of Rain would be one of those rare theatre pieces to attend several times. Both script and performances offer nuance, detail and revelations to deepen meanings upon each viewing.
Highly recommended.
Review by Elizabeth Cobbe in Austin Chronicle, October 1: "A solid cast, a thoughtful script, and a smart design team make up a fine evening of theatre."
Review by Dan Solomon at austinist.com, October 2
Profile of Penfold Theatre by Rob Heidrick for Round Rock area edition of Community Impact newspaper, September 4
EXTRA
Click to view program of Three Days of Rain by Penfold Theatre Company
Hits as of 2015 03 01: 2701
Three Days of Rain
by Richard Greenberg
Penfold Theatre Company
