`MYSTERIES' REVEAL HISTORY AS HIGHLY ENTERTAINING THEATER.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

THEY HAD ME at the precurtain announcement where the audience on one side of the house - not mine, drat the luck! - was instructed to make liberal use of the house-provided water spritzers during Noah's Flood.

Would that those of us seated on the other side of the drastically reconfigured Actors' Gang had demanded equal time and been afforded the opportunity - a couple of scenes previously - to pelt Adam and Eve with forbidden apples. Then again, given that the actors playing Eden's first tenants (Alessandro Mastrobuono and Erin Jellison) spend their scene quite nude, perhaps projectiles wouldn't have been such a good idea.

This is not to make sport of the quite wonderful assortment of Mystery Plays on stage at the Actors' Gang through mid-September. Adapted from 12th- and 14th-century stagings of Old and New Testament stories, and titled ``The Mysteries,'' the Gang's season finale is peculiar, edgy and strangely reverential.

The clothing (designed by Christal Weatherly) tends toward modern. The sets (by Richard Hoover) are eerily minimalist, with a string of long tables suitable for human sacrifice, a tree that doubles as a cross, and a wall bedecked with what look like stuffed ravens. For the aforementioned flood scene, there is a large wading pool. The audience sits both above the action, and, in certain cases, in the middle of it. In fact, God (Tom Fitzpatrick) emerges from the crowd. He wears a long coat. So do his angels. We know that Satan is, well, Satan because when he breaks with God to tempt Eve, he wears a red scarf.

The first act of ``The Mysteries'' - including the Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Flood, Abraham and Isaac, and the Three Magi - are adapted from the York, Townley and Chester Cycles. In Act 2, the tone and the language get a little friskier as adapters Borislav Pekic, Mikhail Bulgakov and especially Dario Fo take over. Yet director Brian Kulick, who has worked extensively at New York's Public Theatre, easily blends the disparate tones. It never feels like we're watching two vastly different pieces of theater.

God's presence in the stories starts to ebb toward the end of the first act and into the second, allowing Fitzpatrick to return as the unlucky Lazarus. Most if not all of the performers take on several roles. Brent Hinkley is a splendidly henpecked Noah during the Flood and the Fool at the Raising of Lazarus. Patti Tippo also shines, first as Noah's storm-be-damned wife - who manages to get herself quite drenched - and later as the Virgin Mary.

Performance-wise, there isn't a sour apple in the entire sanctified bunch. Throw in Kulick's arrangements and the smooth work of the technical team, and there's no earthly reason these ``Mysteries'' - admittedly no easy sell - shouldn't find plenty of audience members willing to pay and spray.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

THE MYSTERIES - three and one half stars

Where: Actors' Gang, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through Sept. 28.

Tickets: $15 to $20. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Bible study should always be this edgy and creative.

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Brent Hinkley and Patti Tippo brave Noah's Flood in ``The Mysteries,'' at the Actor's Gang.