STAGE REVIEW : Ribalow’s ‘Irish Coffee’ Suited for Pinter Palates

It’s a bit Pinterian, this sip of “Irish Coffee” at the Burbage Theatre. But it’s the right mood for playwright Meir Z. Ribalow’s tasty measure of disenfranchised youth and the moral cataclysms they sometimes wade through unnoticed in a world that hardly cares.

Ribalow, as his own director, may play into the Pinter style too easily at moments, but he also keeps the action crisp and knows where to amplify the sense of mystery that highlights his script. His dialogue is eminently listenable in any case and forms characterization instantly: “I liked the sand and the sea,” young postman Charlie recalls. “It reminded me of nature.”

Teen-aged Kate has met vacationing Charlie, and followed him to London on his invitation for bed and board and fun and games. Much to Charlie’s dismay, her brother Nick, who is also her lover, has tagged along. They move in on Charlie’s flat, his life and, eventually, his mind.

Kate and Nick are alone in the world and have fallen into a lifestyle you can find on any urban street. Robbery and vice are their specialties. “It’s a seductive business, anarchy,” Nick mumbles with a sly wink at Charlie.

But Charlie is easy to seduce, and soon his honest life, and his honest job, are put in jeopardy by his fascination for the evil spell of Kate and Nick.

Ribalow’s point is clear and strong. It doesn’t take much in today’s fractured society to suck a good man into a blind alley of dishonesty, and not just on the social level of his protagonists. That Kate and Nick get away with it all doesn’t surprise us. That Charlie comes out clean doesn’t either, for he hasn’t actually transgressed. But when he starts drinking Nick’s panacea, Irish coffee, we know the door is open, and he might pass through it again.

In this production it’s Charlie’s show, partly because of James Victor’s impeccable dialect and sense of place as the postman, but mostly for his understanding of those mysterious moments when Charlie is being seduced. Alex Alexander’s Kate is a firm rock of characterization, hard, sultry and bewitching.

As Nick, Sean Kanan might find more depth in greater subtlety, but his blustering force is often just right in the shadowy game he and Kate are playing. Juliet Landau is delightfully kinky as Nick’s gum-chewing punk rocker pickup, whose bimbo-like detachment is more dangerous than Nick’s and Kate’s studied evil.

“Irish Coffee,” Burbage Theatre, 2330 Sawtelle Blvd., West L.A. Fridays-Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Ends Sept. 13. $15; (310) 478-0897. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.