`Dark Rapture' Can Be Confusing, But Savor The Ambience

"Dark Rapture," by Eric Overmyer. Directed by Kurt Beattie. Empty Space Theatre, 107 Occidental Ave. S. Tuesday-Sunday through May 30. $13-18. 467-7000.

OK, so there's this $7 million missing, and the red-haired dame is trying to make it look like the dough burned up with her husband in that big Oakland Hills fire before she could launder it in an offshore bank, but the goons in shiny suits don't believe her.

Then this Cuban guy (who maybe killed President Kennedy) looks for the dude in Key West, while the crazy Armenian hoods terrorize a car dealer in Los Angeles and run guns in Louisiana.

Got all that? Don't worry. I've not given away the plot of "Dark Rapture," the new Eric Overmyer play at the Empty Space Theatre.

This convoluted drama has so many crosses and double crosses, so much larceny and lust, it recalls the anecdote about the film of Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep."

Supposedly neither the director Howard Hawks nor screenwriter William Faulkner could unsnarl the plot. When they asked Chandler for clarification, even he couldn't figure it out.

Actually, Overmyer's stylish, cinematic script, and Kurt Beattie's sleek Empty Space staging, are not about solving mysteries anyway. Mood is the key here - evoking the mood of hard-boiled novels by Chandler, Elmore Leonard et al., and cold-blooded noir films of "The Big Sleep" ilk.

And though one eventually stops caring about who's done what to whom, "Dark Rapture," really sizzles with ambience.

Overmyer, author of "On the Verge" (also given its premiere at "Empty Space") and scripts for "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill" and other TV series, again proves he's a limber word acrobat, writing dialogue and scenes that somersault and cartwheel all over the map.

Against Peggy McDonald's effective set of framed screens and Michael Wellborn's fine lighting scheme, the actors have a lot of smart, nasty things to say in pulp vernacular. And the Empty Space actors spit them out with relish.

As a woman with the moral fiber of a tube of lipstick, Katie Forgette exudes Kathleen Turner-sultriness and Barbara Stanwycksteeliness. R. Hamilton Wright and David Pichette make a nicely creepy gangster twosome, while Rex McDowell and David Mong handle double roles convincingly.

As a langorous dope dealer, Sally Smythe delivers lines like "Key West is the original on-the-lam, in-a-jam, don't-ask-too-many-questions place" with just the right dry tang. Only Peter Silbert seems uncomfortable as the ill-defined Ray.

"Dark Rapture" frustrates in the clotted second act, which cries out for cutting. It also disappoints in the end: Overmyer writes so elegantly you hope he'll actually wind up making a point or two.

But while it alludes to philosophical and historical angst, the play mostly skates along a shiny, brittle surface, and echoes the snappy paranoia found in all those Black Lizard reissues. As one character puts it, "Always watch your back. You never know what's lurking out there in the dark rapture."