`INSPECTOR' IS IN THE HOUSE : EXPLORING L.A. REVIVAL OF TONY-WINNING MYSTERY FROM THE INSIDE OUT.

Byline: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer

At sunset, the Ahmanson Theatre stage is bare, except for a couple of dozen workers milling about, waiting to unload a long tractor-trailer truck backing into a nearby loading bay.

As the truck rolls to a stop, the men snap into action, unloading massive boxes of cables, lights and props onto the stage floor.

In just a few hours, they will take these pieces of painted wood and glass and rubber and create a new world in the heart of downtown Los Angeles - an old industrial British city of cobblestone streets, Victorian homes, lampposts and fog.

The orchestrated set-up is one these workers know well: The multi-Tony Award-winning revival of ``An Inspector Calls'' has been touring the country since October and will move on to another city eight weeks after it opens here.

Up, down, up, down. It's the same for any traveling show. But with this production of the creaky 1945 J.B. Priestly mystery, these workers have the distinction of erecting and dismantling a set that is considered as big a star as the actors.

Indeed, the set is not only impressive looking, it is packed with special effects. At the climax of the one-hour, 55-minute play, the house explodes and thrusts toward the audience, spilling its contents onto the proscenium. At other points, it rains - really pours - on stage.

Director Stephen Daldry, who won a Tony for the show's Broadway production, says innovative effects such as these are becoming more common as producers look for new ways to breathe life into classics.

``The whole production is trying to get to the heart of the piece,'' he says. ``So the set isn't simply decor. There's a movement to grapple with the core of the meaning of a play in every aspect, from the lighting to the costumes.''

The Priestly drama is essentially about the apparent suicide of a working-class girl and the suspicions her death casts on the members of an upper-crust family. In Los Angeles, it stars Stacy Keach as the family patriarch and Kenneth Cranham as the ominous inspector. Cranham played the part in London and on Broadway.

The crew members working to give these actors their stunning platform labor under a tight schedule. About half a day after the load-in, the show will have its first full dress rehearsal. A few hours later, the first Los Angeles audience will see a preview performance. (The show opens tonight.)

That time frame requires working at a quick, if not chaotic pace. Only six lead workers who travel with the show know how the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of the set fit together. The other 20 or so workers are locally hired stagehands or men and women who work for the Ahmanson.

At times, the frenetic pace of the set-up makes simply hanging around dangerous.

Unwinding cables wiggle on the floor. Speakers and lights dangle from overhead wires on their way up to the top of the theater. Massive pieces of set roll by on hand trucks.

Yet, production electrician Sal Restuccia walks about with nimble abandon, knowing just when to duck and when to jump.

``I know every sound that every piece of equipment makes, and I can tell you where everything is without looking around,'' he says. He also has memorized which cables plug into which sockets and which switches.

``I used to write everything down, but after putting it up 21 times, I know exactly where everything goes,'' he boasts.

And if he forgets, each cable is marked with a letter that corresponds with a socket.

The same identifying system is used for pieces of the set, which bolts together like life-size Legos. First, the three-story house - the focal point for the first half of the play - is put up. Then it is lifted off the stage, hanging suspended from cables until the angled floor is built. Finally, the house is lowered onto tall stilts.

As the set comes together, Restuccia uses a laptop computer to test the 231 lights that are part of the production. Unlike other shows, ``An Inspector Calls'' is lit entirely from the sides, making the characters look as though they are under an interrogation lamp.

``I call it the deer-in-the-headlights effect,'' said Restuccia. ``Everybody looks like they're about to be run over by a big truck.''

Restuccia also is in charge of the rainmaking apparatus. He makes sure the water storage tank is connected to the proper pumps and hoses that change the weather from clear to misty to pouring.

Each night, the system dumps 200 gallons of heated, filtered water onto the stage. The ``rain'' is collected through a series of pools and canals beneath the stage and pumped out.

The rain collection equipment is ``magical as well as practical,'' Restuccia said.

Production carpenter Steve Gallo, who, like Restuccia has been with the show since its New York days, says each set-up has its own challenges. For example, one theater had a 26-foot-wide stage. The set, however, is 28 feet wide.

``It was like putting on a major production in your garage,'' Gallo said. Ultimately, the set was installed in a sort of sideways position.

Yet, despite all the attention paid to the set of the show, director Daldry insists that the rain and the exploding house and unusual lighting are not effects as much as just part of the storytelling process.

``It's all about the world you create, making sure it has truth and validity,'' he says. ``So if it needs to rain, it rains.''

And everything about the show is an attempt to discover just what playwright Priestly meant when he wrote the play 51 years ago, Daldry says.

``In our production, we are trying to get to the play that Priestly wanted, to give it metaphorical life rather than literal meaning.''

Priestly died 12 years ago. Although ``An Inspector Calls'' is, on the surface, about a girl's death, it also raises larger issues about the responsibility of the wealthy to care for the poor, a topic still debated.

``Many of the questions that arise,'' says Daldry, ``are the same as what we're asking ourselves today.''

THE FACTS

What: ``An Inspector Calls,'' a touring revival of dramatist J.B. Priestly's 1945 play.

Where: The Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through June 30.

Tickets: $15 to $50.

Information: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Play toys

The touring productio n of `An Inspector Calls' is loaded with surprises - including a stunning climax guaranteed to bring the house down.

(2--Color) Kenneth Cranham is the ominous inspector in ``An Inspector Calls,'' at the Music Center's Ahmanson Theatre. Cranham played the part in London and on Broadway.

(3--Color) On a set that is considered as big a star as the actors, the three-story house is the focal point for the first half of the play.

(4--Color) Crew members set up the upper foundation of the house. Eventually, the house is lifted off the stage, where it hangs suspended from cables until the angled floor is built. Finally, the house is lowered onto tall stilts.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News