MELODY FAMILY LIVES IN DISCORD, THANKS TO DAD.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

You listen for it, suspecting it should be there, waiting for it to poke through: the Irish brogue that separates Cornelius Melody -- once and finally -- from his genteel delusions.

You listen, but it's not forthcoming, and you wonder what gives. Geoff Elliott, A Noise Within's co-artistic director, who is playing Melody in ``A Touch of the Poet'' on the company's Glendale stage, is too accomplished a technician to not learn -- or more likely, perfect -- that brogue.

Then comes ``Poet's'' fourth act, when a bloodied but not so humbled Con Melody has received the thrashing that the character has been so richly begging for over the previous two hours. And the accent emerges: corrosive, mocking and horrifying to those forced to hear it. And Michael Murray's exciting production notches its final feather.

Tough stuff, this. Eugene O'Neill may have penned more depressing and misery-soaked plays than ``Poet,'' but that hardly makes this a pepfest by comparison.

As the disharmonic Melody family, Elliott, Deborah Strang and company newcomer Brigetta Kelly pretty much douse this baby in gasoline and light the torch. Elliott's work might be the production's showcase, but Kelly's work is its spine.

The dead-end inn and tavern run by Melody is -- for all its imprisonment -- a gathering spot, a place where the liquor is finer than its debt-ridden proprietor. Nora Melody (Strang), the devoted but beaten-down colleen Con married when she became pregnant, can barely draw a kind word from her husband. Their daughter, Sara (Kelly), has sights on a shy but wealthy poet laid up sick in the inn upstairs. If Sara can get a proposal out of Simon Harford, her days of clearing tables and enduring her father's pretensions are over.

But Con, who starts in on the gin from the moment he regains consciousness from the previous evening's bender, knows Sara's game and looks to profit by her potential good fortune. Even sloshed, he's resourceful enough to possibly queer his daughter's future. Murray's production grimly builds toward its conclusion and, thanks largely to Kelly, you're with it every step of the way.

Matters reach a head on the day Con and cronies are to commemorate Con's military service -- many years ago -- in Talavera. So Con, who enjoys quoting Byron while studying himself in the mirror, spends a good portion of the play clad in a smart, red, dress uniform. And, by God, the man fills it out snappily.

The rare kind word piercing the constant bitterness between Sara and Con is a kind of a respite. Kelly's Sara is fueled by years of fury, certainly, but also by outright desperation. Subtract the liquor, and father and daughter are -- uncomfortably -- very much alike. Strang's Nora, with her greasy hair and shabby garments (Soojin Lee is the production's costume designer), comes across as little more than an overly devoted slave.

Elliott progresses as well, from a sot who can barely hold his gin glass to a self-deluded poseur to once-proud man who has to stare his ruin directly in the face and then retreat, head bloodied but held high, to the bar.

The character -- like the play he commands -- is mesmerizing. He's got more than just a touch of the poet in him.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

A TOUCH OF THE POET - Three and one half stars

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

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 3 Plays in rotating repertory. Call for specific show dates and times.

Tickets: $34 to $38. [phone], Ext. 1. www.anoisewithin.org.

In a nutshell: The misery -- and the redemption -- cometh.

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Photo:

Deborah Strang, left, and Brigetta Kelly are a suffering mother and daughter in ``A Touch of the Poet.''