Three Days of Rain

Photo by Yarcenia Garcia

Siblings Walker (Eric Baldwin) and Nan (Beth Edwards) are the central figures in Richard Greenberg’s engrossing drama, “Three Days of Rain,” now at Big Idea Theater, directed by Shaleen Schmutzer-Smith. It is about what Walker and Nan believe about their family history, particularly the mind of their emotionally distant world famous architect father, and what they want to find out, based on the father’s enigmatic journal Walker has found, which gives tantalizing hints about their parents’ past.

When the father’s will gives his prized accomplishment, a famous home once featured in Life magazine, to Pip (Ryan Snyder), the son of his collaborator, it is a blow that none of the trio can understand.

Act 2 is set 35 years earlier, with the actors playing their parents and giving the audience answers to the some (but not all) of the questions posed in Act 1.

This is a strong trio of actors.  Baldwin gives and honest and gut wrenching performance as Walker, but it is as Ned, his reserved, stuttering father, where he really shines.

Edwards is a strong Nan, who loves her brother, but can’t quite trust him, since he has disappointed her so often.  As mother Lina, she is less like the described “Zelda Fitzgerald’s less stable sister” and it is difficult to see how she became the mentally needy, alcoholic mother described in Act 1.

Snyder is wonderful as the suave handsome TV idol Pip, and also deftly plays the emotionally unstable Theo, whose untimely death will affect everyone forever.

Though the second act seems rushed, trying to fit in too much too quickly, following the more solid first act, this is a compelling drama certain to satisfy.

Four Stars