IN THEIR HONOR `THE GUYS' STANDS OUT NOT ONLY AS A FITTING EULOGY FOR 9/11 FIREFIGHTERS BUT ALSO AS GRIPPING DRAMA.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

QUIETLY POWERFUL and hard-hitting without being maudlin, Anne Nelson's play ``The Guys'' is, in itself, a kind of dramatic coming to terms. That's fitting, since this two-character play - written in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - is about a woman looking for words to eulogize a group of fallen firefighters whom she has never met.

Herself a respected writer and professor of journalism at Columbia University, Nelson clearly could have been quite successful as a speech writer. With ``The Guys,'' she proves she knows something about drama as well.

Granted, she has help. Even a year later, 9/11 and its aftermath are no less compelling or emotionally comprehensible than they were when Nelson wrote ``The Guys.'' Audiences tend to pay attention when someone writes powerful words. They'll listen even more closely when those words are spoken by performers like Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Carol Kane, Susan Sarandon, Anthony LaPaglia, Amy Irving and Bill Irwin, all of whom have performed ``The Guys'' at New York's Flea Theater.

At Actors' Gang, where ``The Guys'' began an open-ended, rotating celebrity run Thursday, it falls to Helen Hunt and Tim Robbins to hold an audience captive for 90 wrenching - yet strangely soothing - minutes. It's a marvelous pairing. Robbins wears the role of an ordinary guy like a favorite pair of jeans. Hunt, even playing a woman out of her emotional comfort zone, has a presence that says, ``Believe me. Trust me.'' And we do.

Joan, the Upper West Side editor who doesn't realize how much of a New Yorker she is until tragedy strikes, is ``The Guys' '' engine, the interpreter. Hunt expertly guides Joan's journey of discovery. And her scenes with Nick, the fire captain played by Robbins, are beautifully realized.

Nick needs assistance. Sept. 11 is less than a week old and Nick, a senior battalion commander, has to deliver eulogies for eight of his firefighters. Soft spoken but never gruff, Nick isn't a man of words even under ideal circumstances. He and Joan meet in Joan's apartment, and they get to work. He talks about his guys - some of whom even he barely knows. She asks questions, draws out information and writes. She does her job well. More important, she's exactly the kind of listener Nick needs.

Between scenes with Nick, Joan addresses the audience, providing her own take on 9/11 and its aftermath. As smart as Hunt is and as expertly as she delivers them, these monologues aren't the playwright's strength; they feel overly therapeutic. We want to hear about Joan's place in the tragedy, certainly, but we especially want to learn - as Joan does - about ``the guys.''

Little by little, Robbins' Nick fills in the picture. Clad in a sweat shirt, his hair graying, Nick starts out uncomfortable and then gradually he opens up. Nick may not be an intellectual, but he knows what he feels and has a sense of what people close to the guys will feel too. Director Robert Egan doesn't let the relationship between Joan and Nick become unnecessarily complicated or take on inappropriate elements or tension. The fire captain needs a wordsmith; the writer needs a subject to help her feel connected. End of story.

The presence of Hunt and Robbins - who will be with the production through July 28 - is this production's strength. But Nelson's writing is kind of a beacon as well. The playwright, who based Joan's assignment on her own work, knows ``the guys'' and through her words, she lets us know them as well. It's a connection that even audiences at a theater 3,000 miles away from Ground Zero need to make.

THE GUYS - Three and one half stars

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

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; with Tim Robbins and Helen Hunt through July 28 (future casts to be announced).

Tickets: $40. $15 tickets available to firefighters at each performance, subject to availability. Some tickets are available for Wednesday pay-what-you can performances. Those tickets go on sale at 6 p.m. Call [phone].

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Photo: Helen Hunt and Tim Robbins in ``The Guys.''