Thirty-one years ago, Steven Woolf directed his first play at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, a Studio Theatre production of David Mamet's two-man drama "A Life in the Theatre." Now Woolf is back in the Studio with another two-man drama by an earthy Chicago writer, "A Steady Rain" by Keith Huff.

In the intervening years, Woolf has become the theater's artistic director, and St. Louis audiences have come to appreciate his own aesthetic bent. Among the many productions he's directed himself, certain titles stand out: Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Harold Pinter's "Betrayal," John Guare's "Six Degrees of Separation," Donald Margulies' "Dinner with Friends" and Charlotte Jones' "Humble Boy."

Some are comedies, most are dramas; one, Stephen Sondheim's "Company," is a musical. But they all connect to those two-man shows in the little Studio Theatre.

 

As a director, Woolf is preoccupied with questions of intimacy. The plays he chooses to direct himself (surely one of the great advantages of being AD at a good-sized theater) again and again involve people crawling into one another's lives. Wittingly or not, welcome or not, they bulldoze barriers of self-protection and self-definition. They destroy each other or open each other up. Mostly, they don't even think about the consequences. In Woolf's work, the drive for intimacy is as great as the need for food or water. His characters just can't live without it.

Denny (Joey Collins) and Joey (Michael James Reed) , the two characters in "A Steady Rain," think they are as close as two men can be, and they may be right. Friends since kindergarten and partners on the Chicago police force, hotheaded Denny and introverted Joey complement each other. They work well together, they think, because they aren't rivals. Instead, they push each other in directions they might not go — and maybe shouldn't.

The actors sink into Huff's tough, conversational language as if they were savoring a meaty slice of pizza: Reed chews on his lines thoughtfully, Collins snaps and bites. In the course of the 90-minute, no-intermission drama, they tell stories, confront criminals and juggle conflicts on and off the job. Robert Mark Morgan's set, a drab interrogation room with a big-city skyline out the window, seems to dissolve into whatever background the stories they tell demand.Thanks to Huff's vivid writing, the actors "build the sets" themselves.

This production should have plenty of appeal for people who don't usually go to the theater but do enjoy a good police drama on TV. Huff — who has written for "Mad Men" and is working on a new Kevin Spacey drama — gives his stage play the speedy tension of a form of entertainment we usually enjoy at home.

But "A Steady Rain" also has the in-your-face intensity that only flares when you're a few feet away from living actors. A small theater like the Emerson Studio is good for that — and for the intimate drama of Steven Woolf's signature work.