SECRET ROSE CHEWS OVER EARLY WORKS BY DAVID MAMET.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

SIGN OF THE TIMES: when the program credit box for one of our country's leading contemporary playwrights first lists the screenplays for ``Hannibal'' and ``Wag the Dog'' and omits the plays ``American Buffalo'' and ``Oleanna'' entirely. David Mamet, the author in question, would probably have a good laugh and a barbed reply were he ever to find himself listening to his words in NoHo's Secret Rose Theatre. The likelihood of such a visit, of course, is zilch.

Still, the newly formed JW Players, who are presenting an evening of Mamet's monologues and one-acts, are anything but Mamet-ignorant. JW's treatment of the playwright's early works are intelligent, often vibrant and acidly funny. At least two of the five players, John Davisi and Daniel DeMarco, should probably be doing full-treatment Mamet plays. They've certainly got the cadence and the attitude.

The JW selections, grouped in a 90-minute evening titled ``Bearing Ourselves,'' include nine scenes and two monologues. Director/performer Adam Price double-stages the two opening scenes in different contexts to slightly bizarro effect. So a lighting check in one scene is transformed into a pusher/client transaction? (``Gimme one. Gimme two.'') Uh, OK.

The playwright's philosophizing on matters of love and isolation come through most vividly in the three-person ``All Men Are Whores'' sequence - a series of monologues that echos Mamet's 1974 play ``Sexual Perversity in Chicago.'' In ``Sermon,'' DeMarco scores as a profane, non-sequitur-addicted preacher who compares death to going through a car wash.

Those who know works like ``American Buffalo'' or the Pulitzer Prize- winning ``Glengarry Glen Ross'' know that Mamet wrote his best material - at least during his early years - for men. The ``Bearing Ourselves'' collection doesn't give JW's three female cast members much to chew on. With the exception of the female portion of ``All Men Are Whores'' (performed by either Kate McKiernan or Kelley Birney), this is largely an evening for the fellas.

And an unusual one at that. It's certainly not every author who can have a late-night radio DJ (Davisi) convincing a caller that bringing dead people back to life and populating Jupiter isn't such a hot idea. That's Mamet pre-``Hannibal,'' and you won't encounter these early nuggets again anytime soon unless you check them out of the library.

BEARING OURSELVES - Three stars

Where: Secret Rose Theatre, 11246 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday; through Sept. 26.

Tickets: $12. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Intelligent, often vibrant and acidly funny takes on David Mamet's early works.