Whatever there is to say about race in America gets said in spades in San Jose Stage Company's production of David Mamet's "Race." Well, maybe not everything, but enough of the hot button stuff to make for a blistering ninety minutes filled with dramatic tension and no small amount of laughs.

Into the law offices of Jack Lawson (a razor sharp Randall King) and Henry Brown (masterful L. Peter Callender), a salt and pepper pair of amoral sharks concerned with the bottom line and winning cases, wealthy, white Clarence Strickland (David Arrow in a perfect representation of privileged blandness) enters seeking representation. Accused of raping a black woman in a hotel, he vigorously maintains his innocence. Do the lawyers believe in his innocence? Doesn't matter. They don't want to know. Justice doesn't matter; truth doesn't matter. The only criteria are can the case be won and will they get paid. Susan (elegant, spirited ZZ Moor), the young, black, newly hired associate just out of law school, doesn't buy Strickland's innocence for a minute. With the sounds and pounding beat of a slickly abrasive Sinatra remix setting and maintaining the tone, the story unfolds like the proverbial onion, layer by layer, with revelations, misdirection and an existential void at the core.

The show, under Tony Kelly's sure directorial hand, moves swiftly throughout save for a few exquisite moments when the actors are allowed to take their time. At the top of the show, before a word is spoken, the hammering remix beat of Sinatra's "This Town" goes on at length as the law office comes to life, characters enter, coffee gets poured, papers are read and glances exchanged. A terrific set up. In another telling scene, Randall King as lawyer Lawson takes a phone call that has important information and the audience sits in breathless anticipation as he takes down every word in long hand.

"Race" is impeccably produced with an expensive looking, lawyerly office designed and lit by Michael Palumbo boasting sleek, wooden shelves groaning with legal tomes and a matching conference table with Aeron chairs. Upstage, glass windows shuttered with wooden Venetian blinds reveal or conceal an outer waiting room. Jean Cardinale's costumes are richly modern and support the characters. The sound design by John Koss is superb.

David Mamet has the finest ear for the American idiom since Eugene O'Neill. His blistering, profane dialogue in "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" put him on the map in 1974, first in regional theatre, then in New York. The following year "American Buffalo" showcased at the Goodman in Chicago and opened on Broadway in 1977 with knockout performances by Robert Duval, Kenneth McMillan and John Savage. Stage Company has a reputation, I daresay a national reputation, for mounting Mamet in ways that sear the soul and this production raises that reputation to new heights.

"Race" is the reason we go to the theatre. Do not miss this ripping show!

"Race" runs through October 28 at The Stage, First and William in Downtown San Jose.