‘Jacks’ at Beverly Hills; ‘Ritual’ at Ebony; ‘Company’ at East West; ‘Greatest Man’ at Actors Alley; ‘Midnight’ at Cassandra Gaylor

It’s poker night at Phil’s place, a ritual that he and his buddies have been indulging in since they were in school. But the card game, in Colin Patrick Lynch’s drama at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, is not what the action is all about. These boys are what the title suggests, “One-Eyed Jacks and Suicide Kings.”

The worries of Phil and his friends are not out of the ordinary. Tanner (Keythe Farley) is afraid that the poker group will break up and leave him behind. Overweight Chex (David Arnott) was born with a stainless-steel spoon in his mouth and will get along just fine. Sharpie Alphie (Mitch Watson) even has trouble collecting a gambling debt from his mother. Phil himself (Lee Morgan) has merely lost his live-in girlfriend, and Sean (Michael Hartson) seems to have been delayed at an alumni basketball banquet.

What sets them apart is the sharp dialogue and the twist-of-the-wrist denouement that they’re given by the 21-year-old playwright. Lynch hears their whimpering clearly and knows all of the reason they wag their puppy-dog tails. He also knows the depth of the tragedy they feel when they learn one of their members is dead.

Director Aric Alexander has gathered a fine young cast to deal out Lynch’s poker hands, bluffs and all. The hints Lynch gives, but wisely doesn’t always explain, are firmly placed in perspective by the director. Particularly strong are Morgan as the lovelorn host, Farley as the desperate Tanner and Watson as the mini hustler.

“One-Eyed Jacks and Suicide Kings” isn’t an important play, but it’s an important first step for a new playwright with a great deal of promise. This is only the first hand. When the stakes get richer, Lynch might just draw to an inside straight.

At 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills, Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m., Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m., through Nov. 26. Tickets: $15; (213) 466-1767.

‘Ritual’

Stanley Bennett Clay’s honest and unsettling dissection of a black yuppie family in upscale Baldwin Hills seems oddly timeless. “Ritual,” at the Ebony Showcase Theatre (previously produced in 1981 and 1986), describes the Becker family as Eugene O’Neill described the torn families in a number of his early plays, with forthright emotions and more than a touch of melodrama.

The Beckers could be an upwardly mobile Irish family in O’Neill’s New England. Their tragedy is not racial. But Clay’s social insights are solidly where he wants them through an O’Neillian use of monologues by father Leon.

Clay directs a cast of four with firm intent. Felton Perry is as pliable as a man in Leon’s position usually is, but finds fascinating power in his monologues to the audience, describing himself as a “white-collar man with a black face.”

Most of mother Sylvia’s scenes are ably stolen by Sarina Grant. She overdoes Sylvia’s drunkenness but not to the point where it detracts from the firm foundation of her characterization. Renee Foster is very good as the scheming, desperate daughter Teresa, and Gregory Eugene Travis effectively makes a strong statement about what really goes on inside the handsome, mild-mannered son Mason.

Al Von Altheimer’s setting, Diane Shelton’s costumes and the lighting design by Jimil and Anthony Dean Moffett help create the proper images.

At 4720 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles, Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., through Nov. 26. Tickets: $19.50-22.50; (213) 936-1107. ‘Company’

A couple of seasons ago, East West Players had a lot of fun with a production of “A Chorus Line.” The same spirit and brightness glows in their current production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.” This time around, they brought in the talented Paul Hough as director, and he sorts the relationships in George Furth’s book delightfully and stages the piece (assisted in choreography by Louise Mita) with good style and some rewarding abandon.

The company, headed by Robert Almodovar as Bobby, the bachelor who has it all but wonders if he wants it, doesn’t have great voices, but are just right for what Sondheim has given them to do. Almodovar, in particular, gives the show much of its spark.

The fire doesn’t ignite, however, when Hough projects quotes on screens, apologizing for what is going on throughout the evening. When Bobby visits Harry, who is on the wagon, we are informed there are 3 million to 4 million alcoholics in the United States. When Joanne (a fine performance by Emily Kuroda) tries to get Bobby to smoke with her, the audience is forced to read about the surgeon general’s latest word on the evils of tobacco.

It’s distracting from the action and has nothing to do with the show Sondheim and Furth created. “Company” says what it has to say well enough by itself, thank you.

At 4424 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, Wednesdays through Saturdays 8 p.m., Sundays 2 p.m., through Dec. 12. Tickets: $15-$18. (213) 660-0366. ‘Greatest Man Alive’

Anthony Webster’s “The Greatest Man Alive,” directed with verve by John Crawford for Actors Alley Repertory, seems an odd combination of temperaments: part Sally Benson, part John Guare. It is a simple, naive tale of an aging carpenter, a philosopher of sorts, who wants to hang himself wearing a derby to get his name in the paper.

Bill Erwin has a field day in the title role and is accompanied by some stalwart friends to see him through the plot to its predestined happy end. Most notable are J. David Moeller as his best friend and Sonia Michaels as the canvasser he befriends while adjusting her love life.

The play is pleasant enough, the production adequate, but it looks and sounds as though it came from another era, long before television took over this sort of thing.

At 4334 Van Nuys Blvd., Sherman Oaks, Thursdays through Saturdays 8 p.m., through Nov. 8. Tickets: $13; (818) 986-2278.

‘Once Upon a Midnight’

On a delightfully eerie setting atop the Cassandra Gaylor’s tiny stage, Paul Clemens brings about “an encounter with Edgar Allan Poe” in his one man tribute to the tragic author, “Once Upon a Midnight.” It couldn’t be that Poe was really this dull.

Clemens, in a script by himself and Ron Magid, directed by Sandra Caruso, does yeoman service dredging up a feeling of lost hope and befogged dreams, but his Poe is, for all intents and purposes, rather stuffy. Clemens doesn’t conjure the mystery of the man, only his environs and the encyclopedic dates of his existence.

The show’s two-hour length, along with a rather obtrusive kerosene lamp that fills the air with smoke and odor, make this encounter with Poe less than we could have wished.

At 6543 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Thursdays through Saturdays 8 p.m., through Dec. 10. Tickets: $10; (213) 466-1767.