Three Days of Rain

Three Days Rain
Written by	Richard Greenberg
Characters	2 male, 1 female
Date premiered	1997
Place premiered	South Coast Repertory Costa Mesa, California
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	Manhattan, United States

Three Days of Rain is a play by Richard Greenberg that was commissioned and produced by South Coast Repertory in 1997. The title comes from a line from W. S. Merwin's poem, "For the Anniversary of My Death" (1967). The play has often been called Stoppardian but Greenberg says he wasn't aware of Stoppard's work before he wrote the play but instead claims 1967 BBC series The Forsyte Saga was a much greater influence.Three Days of Rain was nominated for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Walker and his sister Nan meet in an unoccupied studio in lower Manhattan in 1995. Walker, who had disappeared the day after his father's funeral, now months later is living in this apartment where his father Ned Janeway and business partner, Theo Wexler, once lived and worked designing the famous "Janeway House". Walker has found their father's journal and attempts to use it to understand the relationship between Ned and Theo. Nan and Walker's childhood friend Pip (Theo's son) meets with them after the reading of Ned's Will, where the three have learned that Janeway House was left to Pip rather than Ned's children. Walker is furious and accuses Pip of "working on" Ned to bequeath him the house. Pip denies this and protests that does not understand why the house was not left to Nan and Walker as next of kin. Pip reveals that he doesn't even like the house, which prompts another tirade in Walker. Fed up with Walker's ranting, Pip fights back at Walker verbally. Pip accuses Walker of having been secretly in love with him for 18 years and reveals that he (Pip) and Nan were secretly sleeping with one another (behind Walker's back) when they were young. Walker runs off into the night. Pip says he may have gone too far and agrees with Nan to sell Walker the house. Nan tries to find Walker to tell him. Distraught when unable to find him, Nan decides to stay at the studio until he returns. After Walker returns, Nan apologizes and the two of them continue to parse Ned's concise and mysterious journal which opens with the entry: "1960, April 3–5. Three days of rain". Walker believes he's found a confession from Ned, hidden within the pages of the book, to the effect that Ned took credit for Theo's work on the house after Theo's death in 1966. Nan does not accept this interpretation but acquiesces to calm her brother. She tells Walker that Pip would sell him the house, but Walker's new-found "revelation" changes his mind about wanting it. Walker burns the diary, much to Nan's chagrin.

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