The Past Flowers After ‘Three Days of Rain’

“Three Days of Rain” is the cryptic phrase that opens an old diary. In Richard Greenberg’s drama of that name, these words hold the key to the lives of three people--an estranged brother and sister and a childhood friend.

Greenberg structured this as a puzzle--we meet the children in the first half, and the parents after intermission. Pamela Gordon directs this haunting and poignant Evidence Room production as a modern-day mystery, with incidents of tragic romance.

The troubled and nomadic Walker (Leo Marks) suddenly returns from an unexplained absence. His sister Nan (Alicia Hoge) thought he was dead. Their father, who died several months earlier, was a famous architect, Ned Janeway, who had stipulated that at the reading of his will, his children should be accompanied by his business partner’s son, the happy-go-lucky Pip (Jason Adams), a moderately successful TV actor.

In the second act, Greenberg goes back 30-odd years. Hoge is Lina, Walker’s and Nan’s mother, whom Walker previously described as “Zelda Fitzgerald’s less stable sister.” Marks becomes the stuttering, self-effacing father, Ned. Adams now plays Pip’s father, the creative half of the architecture team and Lina’s boyfriend.

Sound designer John Zalewski and lighting consultant Rand Ryan set the mood for two different types of storms--emotional and meteorological. Although the ending is abrupt and the occurrences are mundane, Gordon’s pacing and the nuanced performances provide a bittersweet tension as the audience understands the extent of the characters’ legacy--even as they themselves misunderstand it.

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* “Three Days of Rain,” Evidence Room, 2220 Beverly Blvd., L.A. Mondays-Wednesdays, 7:30 p.m. Ends April 25. $12. (213) 381-7118. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.