Walker and Nan, a brother and sister, come together to divide up the estate of their architect father, with Philip (Pip), a childhood friend and the son of their father’s partner. Ned’s death brings them together from very separate lives, dredges up old rivalries and uncovers unexpected truths. In the first half, between bluntly expressed family grievances and explosive altercations, succinct soliloquies from all three fill us in on the family history.

The main bone of contention is: who is going to get Janeway House, the famous icon of modern architecture designed by their fathers, which was also the family home and a symbolic anchor for Walker.

The truth starts to unravel at the reading of the will and the discovery of a sparsely written diary. A depressive loner intent on dredging up the past, Walker disparages his father’s journal writing as being without style, reading like a weather report, yet he can’t put it down, eventually stumbling across the innocuous entry that proves his point: "April 3 – April 5. Three days of rain."

Walker wants to dwell on the past, Nan wants to get back home to her kids, Pip doesn’t care much for the house but wants them all to part on a good note. Sparks fly – and little is resolved.

In the second half of the play the trio of actors become the parents, some thirty-five years earlier (1960), revealing what happened during those three days of rain.

Clever, poignant dialogue reveals a depth to the characters’ thoughts and deep-seated emotions, and the play is skilfully structured, superimposing the two triads to alternately obscure and reveal the facts of the past and how they affect the present.

The story is less about the contents of the will and the distribution of the inheritance – none of the inheritors are out to fleece each other – and more about uncovering what kind of people their parents were and what events lead to the present predicament. However, what’s frustrating is that, because of the superficiality of the journal, the younger generation never find out the small but significant twists of fate that occurred for three* of their parents during those three days of rain and changed the course of their lives.

There are many winning moments in the play: the characters’ poignant observations of themselves and each other: incidental reflections on the beautiful details of life; the arguments between them, especially Walker and Pip’s and conversely their fathers’; sparkling crescendos of conversational rivalry.

Having the same 3 actors play both generations is essential for the overall effect of the play. There’s very little to differentiate the characters, except for slightly different hairstyles and polo neck sweaters. But it gives the feel of history repeating itself, demonstrating how unavoidably the lives of these people have been shaped by their parents, even though they hardly knew them – or perhaps because of this ignorance.

Eryn Wilson is captivating as the over-analytical reclusive brother, and the most life-like character in the first half of the play. Somewhat starched as Nan, Tandi Wright comes into her own in the second half of the play as their mother Lina, the brash and loquacious, but by no means dense, southern belle. Glen Drake, as Pip, and then his father Theo, gets to play the annoying, emotionally shallow characters (though Pip laments astutely, if you’re happy all the time people assume you’re stupid). Although Walker is morose and narcissistic, he’s got a witty charm about him, in contrast with his stuttering, unassuming father, Ned (also played by Wilson), apparently the less talented of the two architects.

All the characters are likeable, in spite of their irritatingly stubborn attitudes – thanks to Richard Greenberg’s acerbic dialogue and the colourful performances from the cast.  

*Pip’s mother is obviously superfluous to the story, but it seems odd that there’s not one mention of her in the entire play, considering how it focuses so keenly on the effects of the parents’ lives on their children.

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