Wellfleet Harbor theater gets its 'Mojo' working

WELLFLEET -- We've seen these guys before, in the works of Pinter and Mamet: profit-minded, para-criminal punks, panting at the prospect of the big score. The setting of Jez Butterworth's "Mojo" is the seedy back office of Ezra's Atlantic Club in 1958 London -- Soho, specifically, where nightspots are proliferating amid an American pop invasion. Apparently Ezra, whom we never see -- and there's a very good reason for that -- has discovered a singer, Silver Johnny, who exerts the same libido- inflaming effect on young ladies as Elvis Presley.

Edgy henchman Potts (Andrew Rein ) and jocular sidekick Sweets (Risher Reddick ) describe the female audience's physiological response in rather cruder terms, while congratulating themselves on the prosperity sure to come their way from a confab occurring elsewhere in the club: A rival owner wants a piece of Johnny. What the subordinate schnooks, gone megalomaniacal on uppers, don't realize is just how far the competition will go to secure a lock on the talent.

Before long, the entire staff -- including office boss Mickey (David Fraioli ), janitor Skinny (Adam Harrington ), and Baby (Adam Clem ), who has no set role but a sinecure by virtue of the fact that Ezra is his dad -- are barricaded backstage, under siege by unseen, and at times overly vague, forces.

Maybe it's the fact that so many pivotal events occur offstage that detracts from the action, or perhaps it's just that a lot of details get lost amid the headlong pace and occasionally impenetrable (if convincing) accents. Whatever the cause, the vagaries of the plot -- who's betraying whom, and why -- are sometimes hard to follow; plus, the characters are so sleazy, their fates seem less than engrossing.

It's a pity because these highly skilled actors, set in tight motion by director Mark Wilkinson , give the endeavor their all. Rein and Reddick make a perfect Abbott-and-Costello pairing (it's particularly enjoyable how Reddick's pendulous lower lip awaits the smarter partner's explications). Clem is hypnotically scary as Baby, whose Cool Hand Luke stare signals a sociopathic vacuum inside, and Harrington plays Baby's none-too-bright designated victim Skinny with a restraint that ramps up the pathos. "I might want kids one day" is his mild, reiterated lament in the face of nonstop hazing -- an outcome that the odds don't favor. Even Nick Wilson is eloquent as Johnny, despite his near-total lack of lines.

Little gems of vernacular wit pop up amid the rapid-fire repartee, but in general the 1995 script's dark qualities overpower its comedic aspects. If, in its first selection of the season, the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater sets out to prove that the imminent addition of a proper stage -- the new Julie Harris Stage -- doesn't mean that WHAT intends to abandon its original edgy mandate, mission accomplished: A mainstream audience-pleaser "Mojo" definitely is not.