From its adaptation into a full-scale, 1994 staging at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, to Stanley Kubrick's visually audacious 1971 film, Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, is nothing if not theatrical. The story's ability to hold the stage will be proved once again, when Malcolm McDowell will read passages from the Burgess novel at a benefit for Off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club on West 55th St., June 9.

McDowell starred as Alex in the landmark Kubrick film, as well as in the films If... and Time After Time. He's also acted at the American Jewish Theatre Off-Broadway.

With McDowell's reading of the nightmarish Burgess satire, MTC finishes its "Writers In Performance" series for the year. Previous writers honored include novelist/playwright Joyce Carol Oates and poet Carol Muske.

For tickets ($125) to the MTC June 9 benefit reading, beginning 7:30 PM, call (212) 645-5590, x. 148.

--By David Lefkowitz