Hip Hamlet and Lady M. Set Out on a Rock ‘n’ Roll Ride

Call her Lady M. Paint him Candide. Throw in a golden-tressed Hamlet and you’ve got the hippest new trio in Los Angeles. “Shout and Twist,” a production at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles, is a high-concept rock ‘n’ roll ride through a world of educated camp: puns, one-liners, madcap energy, soulful ballads, sarcastic divas, New York angst , Day-Glo makeup and truly nutzoid props. Plus the classics.

“It’s not an accident that we picked those three characters,” said co-star Michael Butler, who created the piece with Johann (pronounced Joann ) Carlo, the stain-handed Lady Macbeth, and Henry Stram.

Butler’s Candide, for example, “is an archetype for a real guitar hero, someone with lots of interests, who bounces from one thing to the next: est one week, gurus the next. Lady M. is the whole idea of rock stars being today’s kings and queens. And Hamlet, with all of his self-involvement, is more of a guy for this time than anybody.”

The piece had its first birth pangs in 1981, when Carlo and Butler hooked up romantically and professionally. He was playing Candide at the Guthrie Theatre; she and Henry Stram were also in the cast.

On nights off, “basically out of boredom, we started writing songs,” Carlo recalled, “and convinced our director to let us do the club circuit. See, in theater, everyone’s polite. In clubs, people tell you what they think. We wanted to bridge those two elements . “

In the club setting, their transition from actors to actor-singer-writers was blissfully organic. “We didn’t just stand up there and sing songs,” said Butler, who also plays guitar and keyboard in the show’s score. (Titles include “I’m Going Steady” and “Out Damned Spot.”)

“We staged them, made performances. Just standing up on a stage, the back beat kicks in--and you don’t have any problem getting inspired. There aren’t many ventures where you get to do all those things. Why not do it all?”

The confidence is well-earned. Butler is a graduate of Juilliard, a former dancer with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and cast member of the recent Broadway production of “Macbeth.” Carlo studied in London, was on Broadway in “Plenty” and on TV’s “Crime Story” as the pouty wife of mobster Ray Luca. Together, they staged half a dozen original works in New York, including “It’s Still Life,” which was commissioned by the Whitney Museum and later toured India and Morocco.

The pair, who consider New York their base, say they rely on intuition to evaluate their work.

“We’ve also trained that intuition,” Carlo said. “So it’s not coming from just anywhere. It’s also from doing a lot of different plays; your instrument gets in tune. What’s funny, though, is all the things people read into the work. They start talking about what this is and what that means, and you say ‘What? ‘ Then afterward you say, ‘Oh, I guess it really is that.’ Or a person can read something interesting into something, and it spins off into another idea for you.”

Although they’ve yet to hit it big (Butler describes their artistic existence as “trying, trying, trying”), it is a satisfying life. “The best part of what we do is traveling,” Carlo said. “You get to meet people, you get to create. I get so much from different places, different cultures. Hopefully, it’ll sift its way through the work, become part of it.

“And the fact that we’re a couple makes it all better. We work together, are together. It’s hard going sometimes, but basically Michael and I are very happy together. So what could be so terrible?”

Perhaps that their work follows them everywhere? “Our relationship is our work,” Carlo said firmly. She sees little indication of that changing. “It’s the community we hang in. I love to cook, make pasta. But it’s always artists coming in and out, discussing their work. What else is there to talk about?

“As far as Michael and me, our sensibilities are very much the same; we don’t have any problems,” she said. “The only problems we have are when we work with other people.”

“Shout & Twist” plays at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Thursdays and Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 7 and 10 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m., indefinitely. (213) 477-2055. Tickets: $17 to $21.