STAGE REVIEW : ‘RAT’--WORDS OVERPOWER THE DRAMA

Give an Irishman language and he is rarely at a loss to use it. Playwright Ron Hutchinson not only uses it, but uses it superbly. He understands that language is power. He also knows it’s an incisive theatrical tool. Yet his “Rat in the Skull,” now at the Taper, Too, ultimately abuses it.

“Rat” is articulate political theater in the literal extreme.

A cocky young IRA “demon bomber” named Roche (David Marshall Grant) has been detained and beaten up in a holding cell at London’s Paddington Green police station. No one knows how--or no one is willing to tell--and heads may have to roll. . . .

In a continual flashback we relive the murky hours preceding the event, during which a Detective Nelson (Charles Hallahan) from the Royal Ulster Constabulary is brought in to interrogate the suspect, while Naylor (Christopher Grove), an English police officer, sits in to ensure a tenuous peace.

The performance becomes remarkable for its achievement of contained fury poised to explode. It becomes a single-handed tour de force for Hallahan, who speaks in astonishing bursts and torrents.

Mind you, Grant is no mean adversary either. His young, brash, hell-raising Irish rebel-with-a-cause is utterly compelling and more by virtue of its chafing, smoldering restraint than by any overt action.

Then, too, Hutchinson knows how skillfully to present all sides of the Irish issue. The Protestant detective and Catholic “bomber” square off like fuming rams, while the Englishman (in a performance whose subtlety is not to be underestimated) wisely takes care to stay well out of their way.

Where Hutchinson errs is in sheer excess. He doesn’t know when to stop. The language may be vivid, muscular, chock-full, in its own tremendously forceful way, of heady colloquialism, but the haranguing goes on too long while real action remains at a standstill.

This is theater of pure discourse that, paradoxically, borders on what a friend termed “theater of monologue.” Considering the heavy (though balanced) political aspects of the piece, that kind of speechifying brushes perilously close to preachifying.

Strong meaning and raw emotion eventually drown in words-words-words and Hutchinson, by not relying enough on the other elements of communication that are equal components of the theater (eye and body language), simply wears down his audience.

For all the brilliance of the argument, for all the applied skills of director Dana Elcar and his actors (including William Glover, splendid as a terse, acerbic, no-nonsense English police chief), “Rat in the Skull”--the doubt that gnaws in the mind--eventually becomes exhausting.

Despite a surprise ending and some masterful theatrics (such as the unhurried tapping out, in silence, of 25 endless years of prison on a table top), what takes two hours and 20 minutes to accomplish might have had far greater impact at a brisk hour and a half.

Clare Scarpulla and Peter Maradudin designed the basic set and lights, respectively. Durinda Wood contributed the simple costumes. Madeline Puzo produced this final show of the season.

Performances at Taper, Too, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East (under the John Anson Ford bowl), run Tuesdays through Sundays, 8 p.m. with matinees Saturdays at 2:30 p.m., until June 8 (213-410-1062 or 714-634-1300).