'SCANDAL': SPREAD THE WORD.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

IT TAKES A certain bravery as a director to cast oneself as the sanest cashew in the nut house, the sole drake in an aviary of preening peacocks. But Brian Bedford knows both his own dramatic terrain and his canvas. ``The School for Scandal,'' Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 18th-century comedy of character assassination and romance, needs its straight arrows as desperately as it requires its scandal-mongering fops.

The categories expertly delineated, ``Scandal,'' which Bedford directs and stars in at the Mark Taper Forum, often feels like a few different smaller plays seamlessly blended. Make no mistake: This is a comedy first, foremost and always, and Bedford the director knows where all the important humor sits and how best to tap it. When the mood turns romantic, it falls to Bedford the actor to keep the mood light and consistent.

A good 15 minutes before we first encounter Sir Peter Teazle, the gentleman around whose unwise May/December marriage ``Scandal'' revolves, in come the scandalites like a bunch of over-eager show dogs. There's prissy Crabtree (played by Edward Hibbert), his poet nephew Sir Benjamin Backbite (Scott Parkinson) and Mrs. Candour (Marianne Muellerleile), who thinks that spreading gossip rather than inventing it makes her above reproach. The trio pays a visit to scorned dowager and gossip queen Lady Sneerwell (Carolyn Seymour), who is devising romantic intrigue with the aptly named Joseph Surface (Don Reilly).

And with a bang, we're in Sheridan's London, 1777. The plot is laid out, the characters spill out of Edward E. Haynes Jr.'s dollhouse facade of a set, peruked (by Gerald Altenburg) and adorned (in magnificently rich costumes by Catherine Zuber) to the absolute letter. More important, we're laughing and involved before we even realize, ``Hey, isn't this supposed to be a stuffy classic?''

Then we meet the newly hitched Sir Peter (Bedford), whose fallings out with the much younger Lady Teazle (Kate Fry) - a budding scandalista - threaten both his own comfort and the potential happiness of his ward, Maria (Devon Sorvari). Sir Peter wants to pair Maria with Joseph Surface, but the girl only has eyes for Joseph's dissolute younger brother, Charles (Kevin O'Donnell). Sir Peter also wants the bickerings between himself and his lady to come to an end. If only Lady T. would simply realize that she's always in the wrong.

``Scandal'' seems to carry different varieties of comic energy, depending on which part of the story is being related. The ruse employed by Sir Oliver Surface (John Cunningham) to test which of his two nephews, Joseph or Charles, is more Surface-y crackles along as smoothly as the Sneerwell/Surface schemes. And when left to do the play's heavy lifting - dramatic or comic - Bedford employs every sour expression or bit of deft timing in his arsenal.

Bedford's done the role three times now, and could probably play a cuckold-able older gent while in a coma. Thankfully there's nothing moldy about this remount at the Taper. It's as fresh and exciting as Paris Hilton's latest reported escapade.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL - Three and one half stars

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through Jan. 23.

Tickets: $34 to $52. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Elegantly dishing in the 18th century with star/director Brian Bedford.