DOWN TO THE NITTY-GRITTY IT'S 'CLOSER' TO REVOLTING, BUT STILL MANAGES TO BE RIVETING.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

It's always a bit of a jolt to hear the word ``kindness'' bob to the surface, freeing itself from the self-loathing and destructive nastiness as though the four emotionally battered Londoners of Patrick Marber's play ``Closer'' still know what the word means. In a world where sex is used for business and mind games rather than intimacy, the occasional bit of kindness seems to be about the best we can hope for.

That director Robert Egan is able to illuminate those bits of kindness isn't simply a mercy, it's a evening-saver. ``Closer,'' which burns up the stage at the Mark Taper Forum through Dec. 10, is tough material, a play likely to polarize audiences across gender lines and almost guaranteed to prompt walk-outs. But stick it out. Raw, funny and showy, the play practically begs to be hated. This production doesn't. It's revolting while being riveting.

Dan brings Alice to the hospital after she has been hit by a taxi. He's a writer, wittier than the obituaries he writes for a living. She's a stripper, a frank and foul-mouthed Eliza Doolittle who knows exactly when to plop her shapely legs into Dan's lap for best effect. Knight and damsel. All she wants is to be loved. Instant connection.

Next scene, a year and a half later: Dan's having his picture taken for a book jacket by a beautiful but careful photographer, Anna. Instant connection No. 2, and bad news for Alice. Later that night, through an unlikely but very funny scene demonstrating how the information age might affect contemporary relationships, Dan accidentally brings a dermatologist named Larry into Anna's life.

Here, then, are our players: Anna (played by Rebecca De Mornay), a woman who expresses in photographs the loneliness she's not allowed to express; Dan (Christopher Evan Welch), cocksure and handsome, talented yet paranoid; insecure Larry (Randle Mell), a brute of a man in a civilized profession; and Alice (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the only person who seems to know how to love somebody. Each is more skilled at his/her given profession than at being a human being. They'll spend the next 2 1/2 hours connecting, fracturing and rearranging. ``Closer'' is not a love story.

The energy of ``Closer'' - as with ``Dealer's Choice'' presented two seasons ago at the Taper - comes not so much from the harsh language, but from the unexpected burst of cruelty. Consider Larry's first act-closing rebuke to Anna (unprintable in a family newspaper), all but missed opening night because of all the audience laughter leading up to it.

Egan, who also directed ``Dealer's Choice,'' knows how to give the cruelty a context. A series of early encounters between first Alice and Dan, then Alice and Larry and finally Anna and Dan, are all played in full of view of a giant photograph of Alice's tear-stained face. Paralleling break-up scenes are played out simultaneously on opposite corners of the same stage. David Jenkins' set is stark and colorless, a long stretch of off-gray fencing against a brick facade backdrop. Excellent use of the back wall, which transforms into a strip club mirror, a park memorial and a computer screen for the infamous Internet encounter.

Among the cast, the standout work is by Gyllenhaal, whose Alice - damaged though she might be - is the play's conscience. Young looking, but wearing an older woman's toughness, Gyllenhaal's Alice is a giant raw nerve waiting to be stomped, and you feel for her like you feel for nobody else. It's a heartbreaking performance.

Less effective is De Mornay's Anna, a tricky character to begin with. De Mornay knows driver's seat icy; she's done that plenty of times on film, but she's not really providing a glimpse of the bruises Anna is concealing, why this character isn't allowed to cry. So often her decisions to stomp men's hearts seem arbitrary, and, even in Marber's world, we shouldn't hate a character because she's lazy.

The two men are appropriate contrasts. Welch's Dan is a rangy bloke who looks like a poet and is believable when the character is finally brought low. As Larry, Mell is burly and gruff, a man who doesn't look like a game player and who trades on his ability to learn and play the game. Ruthlessly, of course.

The type of on-stage viciousness employed by ``Closer'' can be fun to watch or it can simply be an exercise in excess. Here it's a little bit of both. Never dull and as in-your-face as the Taper is likely to get, ``Closer'' should generate plenty of discussion on the way home. Make it a first date at your peril.

``CLOSER''

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 Dec. 10.

Tickets: $30 to $44. Call [phone].

Our rating: Three and one half stars

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(1 -- 2) Christopher Evan Welch and Rebecca De Mornay, left, and Maggie Alice (Maggie Gyllenhaal) encounters the insecure yet barbaric Larry (Randle Mell) in ``Closer,'' on stage at the Mark Taper Forum through Dec. 10.

John Kennedy/Special to the Daily News