Katya Campbell. Photo by Alix Milne.

Katya Campbell. Photo by Alix Milne.

Mycah Hogan. Photo by Alix Milne.

Myach Hogan in the rain.

From left: Katya Campbell, Caleb Scott and Mycah Hogan.

Mycah Hogan and Caleb Scott.

  

Three Days of Rain

by Richard Greenberg

Presented by Amphibian Stage Productions

September 10 - 20

at Fort Worth Community Arts Center
Sanders Theatre
1300 Gendy Street
Fort Worth, TX 76107

$15-$25

8pm Thursdays-Saturdays; 2pm Sundays

The water comes down onstage during Amphibian Stage Productions' magnificent revival of Richard Greenberg's Three Days of Rain, a drama that strives for and frequently achieves poetry—when it's not being pretentious. But the real deluge comes in the emotional rainstorms of the characters and their connect-the-dots relationships.

The 1997 drama was the second play Amphibian produced in its history; the group is dedicating its 10th anniversary season to its favorite shows and readings from its first decade. That production, at Texas Christian University, signaled the arrival of a new company that meant business. But it didn't match the maturity of the current staging, directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt.

Siblings Walker (Caleb Scott) and Nan (Katya Campbell) meet at an abandoned New York loft in 1995 to work out some deets in the will left by their father Ned, who was a brilliant architect. They also discuss their mother Lina, who suffered some kind of breakdown. They are joined by their friend Pip (Mycah Hogan), the son of Ned's architecture partner, Theo. Just when the audience thinks they've unlocked the key to the characters' relationships and starts guessing what will happen next, act two reverts to 1960. The same actors play the parents that were talked about in the first act.

It's a fascinating commentary on the lasting impact our parents have on us throughout our lives. Do we eventually turn into the folks who raised us, or do we spend our lives resisting that transformation? At times, these characters (especially Walker) are overbearingly angsty, but there's never any doubt that these people are real.

All three actors manage to find the humanity in their sad-sack characters, even with Pip, who's using his sitcom acting success as a facade of normality. Hogan is instantly likable as Pip and a little mysterious as Theo, in the show's most transparent roles. Campbell has an angular face made for brooding, which works for Nan. But she comes alive in the second act as the Southern free spirit Lina (another character makes a funny Zelda Fitzgerald comparison). There is honest-to-goodness believable chemistry between her and Scott, whose roles as the neurotic Walker and stuttering, vulnerable Ned carry the show.

They look terrific on designer Bob Lavallee's set; he has transformed the small black box of the Sanders Theater into an interesting space with a detailed but appropriately dreary set. Chad R. Jung's lighting and Tristan Decker's rain effects add to the visual poetry.

Ultimately, this production is like an unexpected downpour that catches you umbrella-less. After the misery of the wet clothes have been shed, you feel rejuvenated and emotionally cleansed.