A NOISE WITHIN'S `WIFE' TOO FAR OVER THE TOP.

Byline: Daryl H. Miller Daily News Theater Critic

It is a time when every impulse must be indulged, every lust sated. When the appearance of virtue is more important than the real thing. When love is expressed only as jealousy and friendship exists only as a vicious game of one-upmanship. When the cut of one's clothes and the flair of one's behavior are valued above sincerity or moral fiber.

Los Angeles in 1996? Well, yes ... but also London in the latter 17th century - during the period after the monarchy's re-establishment known as the Restoration.

Some sharply observed comedies of manners emerged from that era, including John Dryden's ``All for Love,'' William Congreve's ``The Way of the World,'' George Farquhar's ``The Beaux' Stratagem'' and William Wycherley's ``The Country Wife.''

A Noise Within, Glendale's superb classical repertory company, is launching its 1996-97 season with ``The Country Wife,'' and, as always, it is gratifying to see the company dust off a little-performed play and scrutinize it for its relevance to the present day.

Yet while the production - filled with fashion slaves and Hollywood-style air kisses - makes us keenly aware of behaviors that remain constant from age to age, its own false posturing makes it feel brittle and artificial. Director Sabin Epstein has pushed everything way, WAY over the top - acting, makeup, costumes, etc. - as if fearing his audiences are too dense to otherwise understand the play or connect it to their own lives.

But more important than the production itself is the fact that, with this production, A Noise Within expands from 99 to 144 seats and begins its slow, measured trek toward 450 seats by December 1999. Seating has been added without the least sacrifice in intimacy, and the company sets ambitiously on its way toward becoming a fully professional regional theater.

Wycherley's 1675 play is a study in the laws of reverse psychology. The central characters are a lech who has his doctor spread the rumor that he's been rendered impotent (so that husbands, fearing cuckolding above all else, will push their wives into his ``safe'' company) and a foolish old husband who keeps his young country wife locked in a closet when he brings her to town (which only fuels her desire to steal away for a taste of the city's debauched pleasures).

Epstein pushes his actors toward extreme affectation and sheer cartoonery; character gets lost in mannerism, words become choked in froufrou accents. Though likewise pushed toward extremes, Alex Jaeger's costumes are a wondrous parade of sumptuous brocades and ornate laces. And Angela Balogh Calin's set - gilt walls crammed with lushly stylized portraiture - establishes an appropriate atmosphere.

THE FACTS

The show: ``The Country Wife.''

Where: A Noise Within, 234 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale.

When: 8 tonight, 7 p.m. Sunday and various times and dates through Nov. 17.

Running time: Three hours, five minutes; one intermission.

Tickets: $20 to $24, available by calling [phone].

Our rating: Two stars