The setup for Toys in the Attic has the “flowers for the dead” scent of second-rate Tennessee Williams, a Canal Street knockoff of Suddenly, Last Summer complete with New Orleans setting, fading gentility, two frustrated spinsters, a strange, childlike bride dominated by her rich, caustic mother and even (God help us) a ‘weak’ brother.

But the stars have aligned for Pearl Theatre Company’s staging of Lillian Hellman’s last major play, and credit for this small triumph can be shared by Austin Pendleton’s airtight direction and Pearl’s gifted, well-chosen ensemble cast.

And though she lacked Williams’ poetic gifts, Hellman was a master theatrical architect, and this pungent, beautifully constructed play is still solid almost 50 years after its Broadway debut.

A shocker in 1960, Toys features incest, miscegenation, voodoo/witchcraft and an unbalanced bride with a penchant for self-mutilation (think Maggie Gyllenhall in Secretary ).

The sensationalism has mellowed, but Toys in the Attic holds up surprisingly well. A New Orleans native, Hellman drew on the idiosyncratic people she knew to create a strong play filled with sharp dialogue and fully realized characters.

With the sound of foghorns signaling the nearby Mississippi Delta, the play opens with the middle-aged Berniers sisters – ladylike Carrie (Rachel Botchan) and older Anna (Robin Leslie Brown), the pragmatist – anxiously awaiting the homecoming of younger brother Julian (Sean McNall), returning from Chicago, presumably broke, with his young bride.

Set over a 24-hour period, Toys peels away the polite exterior of its characters. This time ne’er-do-well Julian arrives home loaded down with gifts for his sisters—caviar, extravagant clothes and first-class passes on an ocean liner to Europe, along with a gaudy diamond ring for wife Lily, a needy rich girl plagued by jealousy and a lack of self-awareness posing as innocence.

Initially, no one believes Julian’s bankroll comes from a fool-proof land deal made possible by “an old friend.” They suspect poker, some sort of dangerous confidence game or even a stud-for-hire arrangement with an older woman.

As the play progresses, it comes as a relief that Julian isn’t a drunk, a drug addict, a gigolo or secretly gay. At 34, he’s still just the pampered youngest child, a dreamer who lacks the ability to formulate a workable career plan and stick to it. And, though initially portrayed as a charming albatross clinging to the necks of his care-worn sisters, a more complicated truth emerges: without Julian’s penchant for failure, their lives of toil lack meaning. Their emotional assets (as well as Carrie’s barely suppressed lust) are vested in his financial incompetence.

Lily’s too; she yearns for the months of poverty, when she learned to cook on a hotplate in cheap hotel rooms. “I was beloved mama and I flourished,” she whines to matriarch Albertine Prine (Pearl vet Joanne Camp, whose line delivery gives all her scenes some extra snap.), an essentially decent sort repelled by her daughter’s clinginess.

Fearing the prospect of Julian’s new-found financial independence, Carrie and Lily sabotage the final transaction of his land deal, a legitimate sure thing after all.

All of the actors do fine work, especially Brown as weary Anna and Camp as Mrs. Prine, who tries to dampen gossip by passing off her long-time partner Henry (Robert Colston) as, alternately, her chauffeur or butler. Amusingly, her African-American “fancy man” looks and talks more like an elder in the Baptist church.

Scenic Designer Harry Feiner has done a terrific job of creating the threadbare living room and patio garden of a dreary New Orleans home – the last word in genteel Southern poverty. And special mention for Amy Stoller, credited for “dialect design.” Though the casts’ accents may not sound pitch-perfect to Louisiana transplants, all the performers sound authentic to an outsider’s ears, especially McNall, who, condemned elsewhere for sounding “Brandoesque,” instead brings to mind the boastful cadence of Big Easy native Harry Connick, Jr.

Pendleton’s direction minimizes the work’s liabilities, including an overlong second act which should drag, but never does. Perhaps not high art, Pearl Theatre’s entertaining revival of this seldom-seen work is worth a trip to the East Village.

Toys in the Attic plays through February 18 at the Pearl Theatre Company, 80 St. Marks Place at 1^st Avenue. For tickets, visit