SHARING THE PAIN OF A FAMILY'S LOSS.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

A mother and her two adult daughters come up against an opponent they can't properly explain away or talk their way around: silence. Complete, awkward for-pity's- sake-will-someone-fill-this-gap emptiness. Becca, whose 4-year-old son died eight months ago, isn't accustomed to it.

But it's through those anxious silences that this quietly beautiful play lets you know it's dealing with a family's existence thrown topsy-turvy.

Through much of the play's West Coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, Carolyn Cantor's cast find the everyday humanity of this difficult theme. The humor, too. Not a bad feat for a play whose premise seems strictly Lifetime. Parent loses child. Family grieves. Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is no hack, and director Cantor works the material with careful sensitivity.

And folks who have taken note of this play, based on the Tony Award-winning work by Cynthia Nixon in the New York production, would do well to check out the Becca fleshed out by Amy Ryan at the Geffen. She's marvelous, as are her four cast mates.

Becca, we learn, is a former Sotheby's employee turned stay-at-home mom in suburban New York who bakes incessantly and is a bit type A.

Following the death of her only child, Danny -- killed in a car accident eight months before the play begins -- Becca ``mothers'' everyone around her, most notably younger sister Izzy (played by Missy Yager) and her sometimes embarrassing mother, Nat (Joyce van Patten).

Ryan has a quiet, no nonsense demeanor, and a lovely dimpled smile that -- when employed -- gives a hint of what the pregrief Becca must have been like. Nowadays, she's getting through life one hour at a time.

Buy the presents, bake the custards, do the shopping. No support groups.

Becca's husband, Howie (Tate Donovan), takes some solace in watching old videotapes of himself and Danny somewhat on the sly. Since the accident, he and Becca don't seem to do much together. Sex included.

As Donovan's sturdy performance indicates, Howie isn't doing so well either, and the character is caught somewhere between charting his own path and helping his wife. When she suggests they sell the house (too many memories), he agrees. Quite a nice house it is (Alexander Dodge is the designer), with its suburban model-home touches, functional kitchen and the hidden upper recess which, when illuminated, proves to be Danny's room.

The women in this play are the ones with much of the color and shadings. Ryan's carefully structured rectitude caroms nicely off Yager's occasional dizziness and Van Patten's well- timed bursts of crassness. But Lindsay-Abaire (whose previous plays ``Fuddy Meers'' and ``Wonder of the World'' tracked women adrift) writes interesting men as well. Donovan's Howie -- an outsider yet very much part of this family -- smartly completes the picture.

There is another male character: Jason (Trever O'Brien), the 17-year-old who drove the car that killed Danny. Lindsay-Abaire brings him into the story to awkwardly make amends to Becca and Howie. O'Brien's rendering of a de-

cent kid who was in the wrong place, counts for quite a bit.

This production is O'Brien's professional theater debut. Like his cast mates, the man knows how to work the silences. That's ``Rabbit Hole:'' a quiet play that wields an awfully big stick.

RABBIT HOLE - Three and one half stars

Where: Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Oct. 22.

Tickets: $35 to $69. Call [phone] or visit www.GeffenPlayhouse.com.

In a nutshell: The exquisitely rendered shadings of grief. Yes, occasionally even with humor.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Nat (Joyce Van Patten) and Becca (Amy Ryan) are a mother and her adult daughter trying to come to grips with the death of Becca's 4-year-old son a year earlier in ``Rabbit Hole,'' making its West Coast debut at the Geffen Playhouse.