THEATER REVIEW : ‘Moll’ Keeps House With Charm : Long Beach production wisely plays into the humor of John B. Keane’s work about Irish priests and the woman who cares for them.

Irish playwright John B. Keane’s parish comedy “Moll” can’t be placed among the fiery, political Irish plays typical of the last 20 years. But political it is in its own way, which is gentle, warm and understanding, and full of Irish charm.

“Moll,” on Long Beach Playhouse’s Mainstage, describes the tenure of a priest’s feisty housekeeper in the Parish House of Ballast, County Cork in Ireland. Her recommendation from a previous employer, a canon with an undoubted sense of humor, describes her good ways and good works while in his employ.

A letter from one of his curates describes the earthly hell she put him through. Based on a probably apocryphal story passed from priest to priest, Keane’s story has Moll catering unabashedly to Canon Pratt, who welcomes the indulgences and ignores the anguish of his two young curates, Father Phil Brest and Father Joe Loron, over Moll’s strident treatment of them.

The day of the parsonage housekeeper in Ireland is all but gone, but Keane uses the situation to shed some light on life in a parish house. Moll’s insistence that needed income can be derived from bingo and more bingo, that payment for Mass prayer cards go mostly to the canon--with a commission to her--along with her cost-cutting and rigid control of the priests’ lives, is a far cry from the world of “Going My Way.” But its aura is the same, as are its insights into keeping a church going.

Director Darlene Hunter-Chaffee wisely plays into the humor in Keane’s dialogue. It softens Keane’s sometimes cynical tone and creates a mood of affirmation that helps her actors find the core of the play.

*

The three clergymen Moll controls with scant effort couldn’t be more right.

Jim McElenney’s Canon Pratt is kindly and has a fine sense of the comic. If he seems a bit pompous and distant at times, that’s as it should be. Also on target is Dan Snook as Father Loron, determined to have a large choir even though he hasn’t a note of music in his head.

Snook faintly echoes the Canon’s pomposity, a puppy-dog harbinger of the prelate to come, and he’s often quite funny. Reed Boyer’s Father Brest, who most feels Moll’s supposed injustices, cleverly mixes Brest’s frustrations and ambitions into a likable adversary to Moll’s maneuvering.

When Julie Ryan laughs, or at least smiles, as Moll, she keeps a good balance with the three priests. There are too many moments, though, when she seems too strident, sometimes even disagreeable. At those times, Father Brest’s anger seems all too justified, and Moll is less the icon she should be. A little more impish twinkle in Ryan’s performance would help.

*

Kathleen Darcy, as the villager who didn’t get Moll’s job, and Ray Jack, the bumbling ancient she eventually marries, both shine in their brief scenes. David Farjeon’s Bishop, who comes on at the end to give the plot its final twist, is overblown.

Elisabeth McElroy and M. Scott Nine’s setting gives just the right Irish atmosphere for Keane’s leg-pulling of Church mores and is lit as brightly in Art Brandt’s design as the gentle humor of the script.

“Moll,” Long Beach Playhouse Mainstage, 5021 Anaheim St., Long Beach. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; matinees Sunday April 18 and May 2, 2 p.m. Ends May 15. $10. (310) 494-1616. Running time: 2 hours. Jim McElenney: Canon Pratt

Reed Boyer: Father Brest

Dan Snook: Father Loron

Kathleen Darcy: Bridgie Andover

Julie Ryan: Moll

David Farjeon: Bishop

Ray Jack: Ulick

A Long Beach Playhouse production of John B. Keane’s play. Directed by Darlene Hunter-Chaffee. Set design: Elisabeth McElroy, M. Scott Nine. Lighting: Art Brandt.