Craig and Jackman shine through `A Steady Rain` (review)

The events informing A Steady Rain (* * *½ out of four) would make a heck of an action movie. And the cast of Keith Huff's new drama, which opened Tuesday at Broadway's Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, consists of two superstars who have ample experience in that arena - reports USA Today.

The traits that made Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig obvious fits for Wolverine and James Bond are not, however, their most valuable assets here. True, the actors' rugged masculinity lends credibility to their portraits of Chicago police officers who have seen their share of scuffles, both in and out of the line of duty.

But Rain's Denny and Joey, lifelong buddies turned partners in law enforcement, are neither superheroes nor glamorous anti-heroes. They're regular Joes who are challenged — as cops, as friends, as human beings — by a confluence of devastating developments. They require a more subtle physical and emotional fluency — the kind that enabled Craig and Jackman to carve three-dimensional men out of sexy action figures, and has served both stars in a wide variety of stage and screen roles.

To those familiar with that dexterity, their unfussy virtuosity here will be less a revelation than an affirmation, but no less affecting as such. As the play opens, Jackman's Denny, a self-described paragon of family values who nonetheless swears like a sailor, and Craig's Joey, a hard-drinking but more sensitive bachelor, exchange barbs with the acerbic ease of an expert comedy team. Only passing references to a shattered window and glass falling on Denny's wife and children hint at darker subject matter.

We soon learn, through the recounting of several incidents — one inspired by a real-life case of police misjudgment, with brutal consequences — that Denny's moral philosophy as an officer and a husband is more complicated. So is Joey's relationship with Denny's family, which suffers considerably for its patriarch's lack of discretion.

Since Rain is a two-man play presenting a pair of subjective and sometimes incongruous accounts, we see no violence, and never meet the supporting characters. The actors, under John Crowley's expert direction, evoke their sad and seedy qualities, their struggles and strengths. Scott Pask's minimalist scenic design — a couple of chairs with lights hung over them, essentially — accommodates the frequent shifts in time and setting, which have Denny and Joey speaking to and about each other.

Huff's briskly absorbing script has its clichés and contrivances, but Denny and Joey are drawn with such earthy wit and non-patronizing compassion that Rain never rings false or superficial. It's hard to imagine a better vehicle for two actors who clearly don't need larger-than-life characters to deliver grand performances.

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