Patrons of ‘Death Is a Cabaret’ Dine on Intrigue

It’s Paris, 1938. Europe is on the brink of war. The intimate cabaret, “La Vie du Monde”--otherwise known as the Sweet Art Cafe in West Hollywood--is humming with intrigue.

The acerbic American novelist Ned Steinway (named after Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway) is arguing with the Polish chanteuse Varoushka while an animated waitress serves the two house specialties, a delicious chicken and a tasty lasagna from the kitchen of an Israeli chef named Molly.

Outside, on the sidewalk cafe, sipping wine and testily eyeing one another, sit a ramrod stiff British colonel and a devious-looking German baron. Greeting guests at the door is the felicitous owner of the cafe, Isabelle deFarge, and a dashing, gallant, impeccably French-accented host and emcee known as (what else?) Victor Valmont.

Yearning to get away from the humdrum? Longing for an evening that sweeps you into a fantasy that is a cross between the movies “Casablanca” and “Cabaret” with a huge dollop of “An American in Paris” thrown in? Welcome to the latest wrinkle in interactive dinner theater, “Death Is a Cabaret.”

As dinner theater goes, this production offers the coziest atmosphere (the house only seats 48 customers), the most charm and most personally prepared food you are likely to find in environmental theater.

The cast, while serving dinner and drinks, remains in period style, chatting madly to the patrons and to one another. Ultimately one of the characters is murdered, toppling in front of the head table right before the serving of dessert.

Each patron/sleuth is given an envelope with a clue before each serving. Prizes go to the guest who picks the murderer. My clue was undoubtedly a horrible blunder. It began: “Dear Herr Goehring, I apologize for the clandestine nature of this note, but it cannot be sent through normal channels at this time. Signed, Red.”

Tucked off Beverly Boulevard, the Sweet Art Cafe is the brainchild of a young expatriate Englishman, Philip Whitfield, who blew into Los Angeles two years ago “with a half suitcase of clothing” after four years in an Israeli kibbutz.

“Before I went to the kibbutz, I’d never done anything honest in my life,” said Whitfield, a soft-spoken man who grew up in a trendy resort town called Whitley Bay, near Newcastle, on the northeast coast of England (the home of Sting).

“I’d been a band musician and a heroin addict as a youth, and the kibbutz turned my life around,” he continued. “It was there that I learned how to straighten out my values. I started painting, and I learned about food. And it was there that I got the idea for a multicultural arts center.”

When he arrived in Los Angeles in 1990, he knew nobody. “For the first six months,” he said, “I lived like a Bedouin in the middle of the city. Then, for a year, I lived off the sale of my paintings. Next I met the people who gave me a break and my chance to make my dream of an arts cafe come true.”

That was an Israeli couple, Emanuel and Malka (Molly) Shamam, who saw a spark and a vision in Whitfield and made the investment in a little building that had been a tile shop and that now blossomed into the Sweet Art Cafe. Co-sponsoring the venture was Shelly McArthur, ebullient owner of the Mysterious Bookshop, an apt complement to the Sweet Art Cafe and located a few doors down the street.

Emanuel Shamam (who had once been a hairdresser in Israel) said in his broken English, “I wanted a place to push artists up, and Philip looked like the man.” And Whitfield has been doing just that since the cafe opened last summer, initially as a stand-up comedy venue. In fact, one of the comics who used to play the cafe, Phil Lebovits, is the director and writer of “Death Is a Cabaret.”

“The space inspired me for a show like ‘Cabaret,’ ” said Lebovits, who wrote for the defunct “Dennis Miller Show” and who has six other murder mystery shows playing around the country.

“Death Is a Cabaret,” accompanied by pianist Edward Morris and led by Chip Phillips as the suave emcee, features, among the seven-member cast, rich contributions from Kathryn Bundy as the American waitress and Cyndi Freeman as the Polish songbird.

The show has also branched out for special occasions. It recently performed at the legendary seafront Marion Davies mansion in Santa Monica before an annual meeting of the Western branch of the Mystery Writers of America.

The Sweet Art Cafe, on weeknights, is also the home for assorted jazz musicians, performance artists and appearances by literary figures. For instance, author James Ellroy, who’s on the cutting edge of mystery novels, spoke there recently to a packed room.

“This cafe is like a learning place,” Whitfield said. “I was partly inspired by the old idea of the San Francisco coffeehouses, British pubs, Parisian cabarets, sidewalk cafes--a neighborly home away from home where casting people, agents, the literati and the couple who want to relax among artists can enjoy themselves.”

Whitfield has already expanded his reach. In consultation with Sofitel Ma Maison marketing director Candace Simon, he plans soon to bring a show he’s written to that swanky French-themed hotel a few blocks down Beverly Boulevard.

“It’ll be a bizarre musical set in the hotel’s La Cajole restaurant, which is patterned after the famous La Coupole brasserie in Paris,” Whitfield said. “It’ll have such period characters as Trotsky, Stein, Matisse, Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Picasso in his blue period and an impertinent critic.”

In a way, Whitfield has brought a little bit of the kibbutz to Hollywood.

“Death Is a Cabaret” plays at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays at the Sweet Art Cafe, 8789 Beverly Blvd.,

West Hollywood. Tickets: $40 per person for four-course dinner, beverages and show. Call: (310) 652-4338.