Theater review: ‘Steady Rain’ is noir with a modern edge

THEATER REVIEW

“A Steady Rain”

Grade: C+

7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays; 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Through Oct. 11. $20-$39. Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E. Atlanta. 404-733-5000, alliancetheatre.org.

Bottom line: Cop drama packs a wallop. Maybe too much of one.

Twisted and turgid, playwright Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain" has dropped onto the Alliance Theatre's Hertz Stage with a whiff of "Scandal" and a ripped-from-the-headlines, nouveau-noir plot.

A gritty cop drama for two actors, the dark tale received a 2009 Broadway treatment that famously featured hunky film stars Hugh Jackman as Denny and Daniel Craig as Joey.

You may not encounter paparazzi stalking the Alliance's intimately scaled production. But the show does have small-screen cachet in the form of director Jeff Perry (who plays recently ousted White House chief of staff Cyrus Beene on ABC's political drama "Scandal") and Huff (who has written and produced for the likes of "American Crime," "House of Cards" and "Mad Men"). In theater circles, Perry is a rock star by virtue of the fact that he co-founded Chicago's influential Steppenwolf Theatre in 1974 with colleagues Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney.

Whatever displeasure I found in Huff’s flawed but fascinating, 90-minute script, I remain in awe of Sal Viscuso and Thomas Vincent Kelly, for their takes on troubled Chicago police officers Denny and Joey.

Denny (Viscuso) and Joey (Kelly) exist in a blur of hallucinogenic fraternal togetherness. They share a patrol car. They couch surf in Denny’s living room — while his wife and children hover in the background. Denny, prone to racist remarks, tells his friend: “You’ve got a problem with the bottle. I’ve got a problem with my mouth.” Knowing they are probably being watched by their supervisor, they stick together.

But over one long, rainy summer, their lives spin out of control in a virtual downpour of violence, paranoia, infidelity, corruption, drug use, negligence and criminal behavior. Theirs is a classic noir love triangle — updated to the mean streets of the modern day — a little “L.A. Confidential,” a little Jeffrey Dahmer.

No doubt about it: Huff’s a gifted writer. My problem with this play is the structure: For too much of the time, the characters are telling us what happened in the past, so we are left to sketch in the details with our imagination, as if reading a novel. And the tale is so crowded with outlandish material that it loses credibility.