Hilarious Hilarions : The Gladiators of Comedy conquer Hollywood audiences with 80 minutes of music and mirth

The Hilarions are on the loose . . . and everybody’s funny bone is in danger.

At Hollywood’s Theatre/Theater every Saturday, “The Hilarions: Gladiators of Comedy” come out swinging for 80 minutes of music and mirth--with the Self-Righteous Brothers in “The Love Theme from ‘Pet Sematary,’ ” a Jewish Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus (The Kringlemanns), “The Safe Dating Game” (everyone’s tested; they’re not very attractive, but they’re clean), Marilyn Quayle’s “National Nightmare” (Dan’s the Prez) and a couple running a combo mortuary-miniature golf course.

The 10-person show is the brainchild of Michael Caldwell and Rachel Winfree, professional and romantic partners who literally “met on stage” five years ago in an improv group in their native Austin, Tex. “Suddenly, there was Michael--and he just took the stage,” the red-haired Winfree said, nostalgically. “I knew I’d finally found someone who went for it, the way I like to go for things: full tilt. Just feel it, don’t hold back. Don’t play safe, don’t be careful.”

In short time, the two were working and living together. “For two years before we met, I’d been looking for a partner,” Winfree said. “I love to co-create and brainstorm--and here was this person who was just as enthusiastic as I was. So many people just want to do it on their own. But to me, there’s a great joy in sharing the creative experience. Also, when you have a disappointment, there’s somebody to pick you up--and then you move on together.”

In the beginning, though, disappointments were rare. “At home, we were big fish in a little pond,” said Caldwell, who gallantly gives the couple’s age as 32. (Actually, it’s a median figure: she’s 37, he’s 26). “We had a show on the No. 1 and 2 radio stations. We were TV correspondents for the PBS station. Our improv troupe was running three nights a week, our vaudeville show running twice a week. And for a while, Rachel and I also produced our own show--’The Bert and Marge Show’--another night of the week.”

Feeling they’d done everything they could in Austin, the pair hit the road in Caldwell’s 1964 Mercedes and spent a year touring comedy clubs around the country--a spirit echoed in their Bert and Marge tourists-by-Winnebago characters.

“It’s true,” Winfree said with a grin. “I like to ‘go-go and do-do.’ The real desire to do it was that I hadn’t seen the country before.” Some of it, they found, was better left unseen. “We played all these horrible little places,” Caldwell said, wincing. “My favorite was in Kansas, right between two meatpacking plants. When we checked in, they gave us a key--and a fly swatter. The comedy club was in the tornado shelter of the hotel.” Later, during their show, the club’s owner got drunk and heckled them.

Since arriving in Hollywood in 1986, they’ve had to hustle for attention.

“We started going around, knocking on doors--and people didn’t even answer,” Caldwell said ruefully. “So we’d do things like showing up at comedy clubs at 2 in the morning, signing up for a spot--and going on for one person. Lots of auditions and classes. Last year, we hosted once-a-month shows at the Backlot. But it’s really since the first of November that things started opening up in a big way. We played the Cinegrill last week. We’ve got our own little stand-up act. And Rachel’s part of Shana and the Madelas,” an act featuring a trio of Jewish matrons singing Motown.

One of the ironies of “Hilarions’ ” success was that it was originally scheduled to open at Theatre/Theater last May, when Jackson Hughes’ “Our Man in Nirvana” was to have ended its three-week late-night run; instead, that show ran for 31 weeks.

“We were so geared up,” Winfree said with a sigh. “We had this whole group of people, and during the course of the summer, we’d get together once a week and rehearse like mad people: ‘Well, maybe in two weeks. . . . ‘ But it kept going on and on.”

Added Caldwell (a member of the Groundlings Sunday Company), “It got to the point where we said, ‘We really want to be at Theatre/Theater, but if it isn’t going to work out--because Jackson may run for years--we’ve got to find another space.’ So we made all these calls and rounds, but couldn’t find a place that was quite right.”

(Their elation at the news that “Nirvana” would end Oct. 28--and they’d start up Nov. 4--was dimmed by word that Hughes had died of AIDS shortly after his closing.)

With “Hilarions’ ” favorable response, the pair is hoping to induce more respectability in the area, to be part of the Hollywood revitalization effort. They’re also sticklers for fine-tuning the show. “If you expect people to leave the safety of their homes and come to Hollywood at 10:30 on a Saturday night, you’ve got to have a lot of laughs,” Winfree said. “We also try to make it go as fast as possible, ‘cause we don’t want people to fall asleep.”

With these pieces, it’d be pretty hard.

Their own favorites are “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in the Nude?” (set at the Ivar, a former porno house one block from the Doolittle) and “The Phantom of the Ahmanson,” which, Caldwell said, “is about people absolutely obsessed with seeing ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’ Our Phantom is a scalper, who kills season ticket-holders for their tickets--and gives them to young Christine. She goes in and falls in love with the house manager, Raoul, and gets him to buy her all of the ‘Phantom’ keepsakes: ‘Phantom’ earrings, ‘Phantom’ washer/dryer, ‘Phantom’ push-up bra. . . . “

“The Hilarions: Gladiators of Comedy” plays 10:30 p.m. Saturdays at Theatre/Theater, 1713 Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, through Feb. 10 . (213) 871-0210. $10.