STAGE REVIEW : Cain’s Hard-Edged Tales Still Ring True

Everything changes, but nothing changes. Include people in the latter, styles in the former. Two short stories by James M. Cain, under the umbrella title “Getting Away With Murder,” are the proof.

At the Mark Taper Forum’s Sundays at the Itchey Foot, Ellen Sandler has adapted and directs “Dead Man” and “The Baby in the Icebox” with the same hard edge and compassion for the accidental wrongdoer that marks Cain’s more familiar writing. “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Mildred Pierce” and “Double Indemnity” are classics. So, in a way, are these two pieces classic in form and style. Cain was almost doing Hemingway before Hemingway got around to it.

Today’s homeless bear a strong resemblance to the homeless of the Great Depression. The protagonist in “Dead Man” is knocked down, but his basic humanity is not knocked out of him. Lucky (Dwier Brown) got his nickname in a pool hall in better days and he’s convinced the tag is still valid. That is, until he’s hopping a freight out of L.A. looking for greener fields. A railroad detective catches him before the train pulls out, a fight ensues and the detective is left unconscious on a track, right in the path of the departing freight as it finally pulls out of the San Fernando yard.

Lucky’s effort to concoct an alibi, his dream of a vicious, incriminating third degree by cops, and Cain’s quick double twist of plot at the end, fulfill the writer’s frequent theme that guilt is an uncomfortable companion. Cain’s world was a world of narrative rather than character. He simply told riveting stories.

He also had a sense of humor that fills out some outlandish further twists in “Baby in the Icebox.” Here Brown is another wanderer named Ray, who takes a job at a roadside gas station and diner. His boss, Duke (Steve Rankin), is a cheesy jerk, cheating on his wife and trying to make a killing by starting a wildcat ranch.

The next step is the acquisition of a mountain lion, and finally a Bengal tiger named Rajah. Duke knows how to handle cats--with a whip and a gun. His wife, Lura (Anne Heche), has a better way. It’s understood by a traveling snake oil hawker with whom she has a fling. She was born under the Sign of the Cat. She seduces the cats, all of them. When Duke sets Rajah to kill Lura--well, not to spoil the fun, the baby is in the icebox, and Cain’s tongue is in his cheek.

People don’t write stories like this today, and it’s a shame. Maybe a little more straight narrative in our fiction would give us a clearer picture of where we are right now. A sense of humor would help, too.

Brown hits the bull’s-eye as Cain’s protagonists, and Heche’s Veronica Lake peekaboo hairdo and cool approach are only the surface of a reading that’s just right for Cain’s mythic tale. Rankin has a wide range of character voices (he also reads seven roles in “Dead Man”), but rings particularly true as the dumb Duke, who just doesn’t understand what cats are all about. Paul Perri narrates “Dead Man” impeccably, and Mitchell Greenhill’s original music and sound design is haunting and realistic.

* “Getting Away With Murder,” Mark Taper Forum’s Sundays at the Itchey Foot, 801 W. Temple St. Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends May 3 (no performance April 19). $10; (213) 972-7392. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.