Opined May 4, 2006

Three Days of Rain - By Richard Greenberg; directed by Joe Mantello

WITH: Julia Roberts (Nan and Lina), Paul Rudd (Walker and Ned) and Bradley Cooper (Pip and Theo).

Sets and costumes by Santo Loquasto; Lighting by Paul Gallo

At the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, 242 West 45th Street, (212) 239-6200. Through June 18. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

The non-event.  Ahem.

First of all, for those of you who are breaking out in a cold sweat because you have not gotten tickets to see our Julia, fear not!  Standing room tickets are to
be had, and the fact that this show has Monday night performances means you can certainly get in.  Just stop by the box office and ask their advice.  $26.00
is sort of worth it, if it will make you feel better.

Now then. This is a play by Richard Greenberg who seems to be one of God’s charming recluses living in Chelsea.  Why he keeps getting produced is one of
God’s mysteries.  

To wit: A long lost brother and his sister reunite in a deserted loft in New York.  Their father was a famous architect, now deceased, and the will is about to
be read (offstage somewhere).  The brother has been squatting in the apartment, has found his father’s old journal (the first entry reads “Three days of
rain…”) and is hopeful that he will inherit his father’s famous avant guard house out in Long Island.  The sister: she stands around reacting to her sort of
nutty brother, mentions her family up Boston-way, and wants pretty much nothing except to leave when the will reading is over and to finish one or two rows
of some pesky knitting.  Enter the son of the father’s business partner – all sparkling and full of big swatches of life.  Blackout.

Lights up.  All have returned from reading of will (offstage somewhere).  Son of partner got house.  Oops.  As a way of making amends he opens up and
confesses that he and the sister were lovers once upon a time.  Oops again.  Brother flips, exits, returns later when cooler heads prevail, burns father’s diary.  
Sister says “Now we’ll never know what happened!” End of Act One.

Act TWO: Flash back 30 years.  The same three actors now play their parents.  We meet the parents of brother and sis, Dad and Mom, and Dad’s partner.  
Mom is supposed to be showing signs of the breakdown she will suffer in 20 years and the two men are just sort of two men – one with a stutter and one
with a jones for architectural ideas.  Mom is dating the idea guy and is sort of attracted to the stutterer, so when the former leaves to go find inspiration,
(offstage somewhere) the latter is alone in a dry loft when the Three Days of Rain commence.  Mom, displaying a preference for comfort, arrives at the loft
in mid-drip and announces she will not leave until the rain stops.  Rain doesn’t.  Romance bubbles up to the top of the tank.  Stutterer begins drawing avante
guard house with soon to be Mom standing tall at his side.  The End.

I’m sorry that took so long to explain, but bad writing does that.  Even if Julia could sustain a role – this one is a doozie.  Playing wall paper in the first act and
a sort of washed out Holli Golightly in the second act.  The play could have gone on without her.  As a matter of fact, it pretty much does just that because
this is a play about the two men.  The woman is a trophy, but then, so is the bequested house.  As a matter of fact, the woman as she is written is only
important because she can and does bear children.  The house, on the other hand, is a monument to the craft of architecture.  Not much of a match…

Although both men give solid performances, they are undermined by the writing.  We never find out why the mother switches horses in midstream – other
than the obvious attraction of a dry loft in the middle of a monsoon.  We never find out why the father bequeathed the house to the son of his friend instead of
his own children.  We never find out what else was in the diary.  We never find out why they cast Julia.  Oh dear.

PS: Julia’s makeup artist has a credit in the playbill.  Not such a good idea unless you like your makeup applied with a trowel.  Which means they either left
her alone to handle this herself, or saddled her with someone who has theatre experience equal to Ms. Roberts.  In either case the credit is unwarranted.

©2006 by Tulis McCall