STAGE REVIEW : ‘Lakeboat’s’ Actors Sail a Taut Ship

David Mamet, master of testosterone theater, used to be known for bruising plays full of dialogue you can’t print in this newspaper. He’s gotten off that track in recent years. But “Lakeboat,” in a stellar production at the Tiffany, takes you back to a time when men were men and Mamet was Mamet.

An early 1970s comedy about guys working on a freighter on the Great Lakes, “Lakeboat” is Dudes at Sea with a nod to Act I of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Hairy Ape”--without the heavy-handed politics, though, or any dingy rich dames.

Instead of one nasty, brutish Yank you get eight Yanks of different sorts. And from the fresh-faced college kid to the grisly older hands, they all go on and on about booze, sex and egg-salad sandwiches.

The subject is not male bonding, but male anomie and the affable misogyny that goes with it. “Lakeboat” isn’t as rich a play as “American Buffalo” or the 1984 Pulitzer-winning “Glengarry Glen Ross,” but it does hold up--thanks to Mamet’s uncanny ear for dialogue and, yup, the trademark f -wordy Mamet-speak.

Still, “Lakeboat” is more a chain of monologues and dialogues than a play. It’s a high-order actors’ vehicle with no real dramatic arc and an arbitrary ending. It wouldn’t resonate on as many levels as it does here without first-rate performers adding dimension to the characters.

Fortunately, the singular feature of this production is its exquisite ensemble of male character actors, gracefully and precisely directed by longtime Mamet associate Joe Mantegna. Garnishing the text with a few choice bits of nautically themed period and show tunes, Mantegna plays off pop culture’s romanticization of this quintessential guy gig.

Mantegna has the men materialize at various points on and around John Paoletti’s set of metal ramps, trapped in pools of light (by Geoffrey Bushor). He opts for a measured pace that draws clear lines between the many short scenes, emphasizing the crew members’ alienation from one another.

The actors, however, are anything but alienated. Their teamwork is so finely calibrated and coordinated that it’s hard to say where the individual performances stop and the company starts.

Ed O’Neill (“Married . . . With Children”) is so at ease as a middle-aged guy who wants to open up to someone that it seems as though he’s making up Mamet’s dialogue on the spot. George Wendt (“Cheers”) gets laughs with no more than an expression or inflection and never upstages the other actors when he easily could. J. J. Johnston is equally judicious, and Jack Wallace turns in standout work in one of the emotionally flashier roles. But, really, there’s not a bad performance onstage.

* “Lakeboat,” Tiffany Theatre, 8532 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood . Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5 & 8 p.m. Ends March 13. $22-$25. (310) 289-2999. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.