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As we drove away from the opening night performance of "Eating Raoul", my theatre companion was still emitting involuntary yips and woofs of delight. What is in the Cleveland water this season, that has brought us two simultaneous productions of funny-sexy musicals featuring shapely black-leather-clad dominatrixes? And would you have imagined that one of them would be running at the Beck Center?
"Eating Raoul" is a cheerfully perverse cartoon of a musical created by the late Paul Bartel based on his black comic cult film. Rarely seen outside New York and Los Angeles, the show has been given a whipcrack-smart production by Artistic Director Scott Spence. He and an accomplished team of designers and performers have served up an entertainment that is pure Technicolor eye-candy: the audience enjoys and savors every guilty bite.
Under Spence's sure hand, "Eating Raoul" plays as a tongue-in-cheek fantasy just 5 degrees west of "Little Shop of Horrors". Mary and Paul Bland are a square, celibate couple -- she cooks, he collects wine -- completely out of step with the sexual revolution surrounding them in 1960's Los Angeles. Appalled by the "swinger" neighbors in their apartment complex, they inadvertently bop one on the head with Mary's frying pan and become tempted into a kinky life of crime in order to raise the down payment on a small, rustic restaurant.
It's an ironic, amoral goof on marriage and the American dream, and a perfect vehicle for a wicked little musical full of double-entendre rhymes and showy comic flourishes. The songs by Jed Feuer and Boyd Graham are cleverly tuneful; how can you resist song titles like "Hot Monkey Love"?
The triple-threat cast is very strong: fine singers, good dancers who commit with abandon to Jennifer Jones' frugging pelvic-thrust choreography, and so solid in their comic characterizations I was surprised to count only ten actors at the curtain call.
The three leads are both funny and endearing. As Paul, David Robeano has a cherubic countenance and comic presence. As co-conspirator Raoul, the mamboing burglar who wants to headline with Charo, Gustavo E. Urdaneta perfectly exudes comic Latin macho like a too-strong cologne. Torn between them, the clarion-voiced Sandra Emerick shines as a delightfully luscious Mary.
There's also an unforgettable second act appearance by Wendell McDowell: this huge dynamo's insanely inspired tap number in white satin and marabou gown is alone worth the trip. Other comic turns include Tricia Bestic as a divine dominatrix, Julita Danielewicz and Alicia Rodis as the yummy "Raouletttes", and Joe Fornadel, Joseph Ruffner, and Chris Carpenter as various, smug gold-chain-strewn swingers and oddballs.
The other hero of "Eating Raoul" is designer Ed Eckert, whose impeccable costumes make the most of every comedic transformation. From sinister black-masked fetishists who unzip their mouths to deliver singing telegrams, to Raoul's hilarious leopard-print "yump-suit", they're a sublime hoot.
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