SPARK NEVER QUITE CATCHES FIRE IN 'FAHRENHEIT 451'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

WHERE CLASSIC science fiction is concerned, we can pretty well be sure that our future looks bleak. Else why bother to chronicle it? That's a truism whether the author's name is Orwell, Clarke or Herbert.

Or Ray Bradbury, who, nearly 50 years ago, structured a now-quite-famous novel around the premise that, in the future, the government would take an unhealthy interest in thought enforcement. To the point that it would turn its firefighters into federally funded book-burners once the threat of houses burning had all but been obliterated.

Already a 1966 film by Francois Truffaut, ``Fahrenheit 451'' is now a play, in a new version written by Bradbury for his Pandemonium Theater Company and directed, in its world premiere at the Falcon Theatre, by Charles Rome Smith. As timeless as this story and its issues should still be, what's on stage at the Falcon feels a mite dated.

Preachy, too. By the time rogue fireman Guy Montag (played by D.B. Sweeney) makes it to his city's Edenic outskirts, we've heard quite enough about what's driven him there. Staged sci-fi can have that problem: When you put automatons where humans should be, an audience can spend two hours watching didactic robotic behavior. In the case of the Falcon's ``Fahrenheit 451,'' you get more smoke - or just plain hot air - than actual dramatic heat.

Sweeney's Montag is part of the problem. For all his supposedly rebel tendencies, the character is a reactor - and not a particularly interesting one at that. Sweeney, best-known for his film roles (``Eight Men Out,'' ``Roommates'') has a muss-haired everyman quality about him, but he makes Montag seem so passive. As Montag's nemesis, fire captain Beatty, John M. Jackson seems to have a little more, er, fire in his belly. But Beatty on stage is another lamely written character: a fanatical agenda spouter, if you will.

Bradbury doesn't waste much time with exposition. Basically, books are forbidden (classics especially), and firefighters are dispatched to incinerate them - the more substantial the collection, the bigger the blaze. There exists a kind of literary-minded underground, of which free- speaking Clarisse (Becky Wahlstrom) and her grandfather Faber (Jay Gerber) - Montag's neighbors - are obviously members. Despite his better judgment, Montag finds himself listening to Clarisse. Bad move, since over at the fire station, Beatty is designing an enormous mechanical dog capable of hunting down enemies. Its name upon completion: Baskerville.

Back home, Montag's wife Mildred (Marguerite MacIntyre) is overdosing on pills and succumbing to a new and more dangerous enemy: programmable television that allows a viewer to be part of her own show.

Stage sci-fi can also be costly. The Falcon's ``Fahrenheit 451'' appears to have spent most of its technical budget on digital effects and sound. Joshua Metzler's set is black, slightly rounded and sparsely furnished. A trio of video screens flash stained-glass-like scenes and vistas. Also prominently displayed on the center screen is a newspaper-covered icon set ablaze - a neat effect - via the digital work of Nick Denney, Jerry Belich and Wesley Horton.

The burning icon is the closest thing to actual heat on the Falcon stage, and I mean that in more ways than one. The Falcon's first subscription season got off to an auspicious beginning with the West Coast premiere of Lee Blessing's ``Cobb.'' ``Fahrenheit 451,'' despite the pedigree of its source material, is a lukewarm misfire.

FAHRENHEIT 451 - Two stars

Where: Falcon Theatre, 4252 Riverside Drive, Toluca Lake.

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday; through Nov. 24.

Tickets: $25 to $37.50. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Wasn't this story supposed to be controversial? Oh, right, that was in 1953.

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D.B. Sweeney is a rogue fireman in a world where books are meant for burning in ``Fahrenheit 451.''