He’s Mightier Than the Pen

Scanned from top to bottom, the sublimely characterful face of Brian Cox begins around the eyebrows like Albert Finney’s; continues downward, around the corners of his mouth, like Edward G. Robinson’s; and ends up south of the mouth like Finney’s again, especially when the chin’s lowered and the eyes above it scan the room for a new target.

The actor belonging to this particular mug was last seen locally two years ago, in the Mark Taper Forum production of “Skylight.” Cox has returned, this time gracing the Matrix Theatre Company with a brief run (ending Sunday) of “St. Nicholas,” the 95-minute Conor McPherson monologue Cox originated in London and then brought to New York.

It’s a sidewinding tale of a drama critic who falls in with some vampires. If McPherson’s tale of various bloodsuckers feels a touch anemic, a little protracted, it’s nonetheless a generous showcase for a fine actor. Cox enjoys the material, clearly. But he reveals every correct instinct regarding when to go for broke, and when to insinuate, to hide a few things.

The character in “St. Nicholas” has no name. He’s a venal, petty, power-mongering self-loather of a “lucky bastard” employed by a Dublin newspaper.

“I’d never taken the care to form an opinion,” he says early on. “I just had them.”

Then the critic relays his vampire story. It starts with a crush on a muscly young dancer, Helen, featured in a production of “Salome.” On impulse the critic leaves behind his “fat track-suit wife” and two kids and, boozing all the way, he trails Helen to London.

The dancer represents one more thing “out of reach” for this soul-sick bully. One evening in a park, after a misbegotten encounter with Helen, the critic meets 30ish William, a vampire. The critic becomes the vampire’s pimp, bringing nightly to the vampires’ home a new batch of partygoers. For his contributions, the critic is given supernatural charm--just what he has always envied in those he has reviewed, play after play after play. To McPherson, the storyteller is a vampire long before he meets the vampires, merely of a different, journalistic sort.

McPherson is represented this summer in New York by two rather better works: Broadway’s “The Weir,” another supernaturally minded yarn set in a rural Irish pub; and the off-Broadway “This Lime Tree Bower,” a tangy series of interlocking monologues about a failed robbery in a small Irish town. (Cox is featured in the forthcoming film version, titled “Salt Water.”) “Lime Tree” strikes me as his zestiest and most compelling work to date. Certainly, the sidewinding “St. Nicholas” rang a bell or two with me; I once fell in with a group of blood-sucking fiends on tour with “The Will Rogers Follies,” but if that isn’t another story, nothing is. The critic of “St. Nicholas,” though, finally doesn’t seem worth an entire evening. No matter who his companions were.

All the same, it’s a pleasure watching an actor of Cox’s caliber extract so much juice from “St. Nicholas.” Entering from the back of the theater in a charcoal-gray overcoat, Cox resembles the host of some new Fox-TV unsolved-undead-mysteries show. As he casually relays the tale, shifting a chair here or there, gesturing with supreme economy, he imparts a witty sense of menace. Nothing’s forced (in the acting, that is). Cox has the voice and the technical chops to deliver the big stuff, and he does so--but sparingly. As he proved in various films, among them the recent lovely “Rushmore” featuring Cox as the school headmaster, he knows the value of doing just enough. A great face is a start. This actor has that, a voice, and more.

In full color, Cox fills in McPherson’s pencil sketch of an ink- and blood-stained wretch.

* “St. Nicholas,” Matrix Theatre Company, 7657 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles. Wednesday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $22.50. (323) 852-1445. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

Brian Cox: The Man

Written and directed by Conor McPherson. Lighting design by J. Kent Inasy. Production supervisor Robin Gammell. Production stage manager Michael “Cosmo” Flannery.