Come to The Cabaret!

By RICHARD CORLISS

New York City restaurant tips you won't find in any New York restaurant guide:

1) For the finest beef kabob in a three-block radius, try the Asian Appetizers at Freddy's Song of Singapore Cafe. 2) At Steve McGraw's, munch on Jinx's '50s-style Rice Krispie Treats. You'll go snap crackle doo-wop! 3) The barbecued chicken is tangy at the Blue Angel, a stone's throw from Times Square. 4) Sip an oversize Manhattan -- the cocktail of choice for sophisticated Gothamites -- at Theater East. 5) Adam's Apple offers salad, shrimp, chicken and ice cream -- cafeteria food at its most authentic! 6) At the Village Gate, savor the gooey goodness of the Fluffernutter sandwiches, just like Mom used to make -- in a brown paper bag.

Oh, and not at all by the way, they also serve theater at these bistros and boites. It's the latest, cheeriest and, for the consumer, most economical show-biz trend: Silly Cabaret. How silly? Audiences get to be part of the foolishness. They can join a conga line at Song of Singapore (1), play Heart and Soul with the nerdish vocal quartet in Forever Plaid (2), be a beauty- contest judge at Pageant (3), hum along at Forbidden Broadway 1991 1/2 (4), be a suspect in the whodunit plot at a Hasselfree murder mystery (5) or stand to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at Prom Queens Unchained (6). For warm- weather theatergoers in search of an easy evening out, the shows provide organized fun with a hip parodic wink -- a blend of summer camp and . . . summer camp.

To catch participatory theater, play-goers needn't come to New York. It's in venues around the country. Tamara, the Canadian play that leads audiences on a chase through a villa in pursuit of sex and intrigue, is the longest-running show in Los Angeles history (seven years); it also did a 2 1/2-year stint in Manhattan. Shear Madness, a mystery comedy in which audience members give suspects the third degree, has run in Boston for 11 years, Chicago for nine and Washington for three. San Diego, Houston, Miami and Philadelphia all boast dine-and-deduce thrillers. In Tony n' Tina's Wedding, revelers trek from a marriage ceremony at a real church to a contentious reception at a nearby restaurant. The play, in its fourth year in New York, has mounted productions in five other cities. A similar show, Frankie and Angie Get Married, is a solid Atlanta hit.

New York, though, is cabaret Mecca these days -- a ripe satisfaction for the creators, some of whom toiled five or six years to put on their show. Forever Plaid, a year old, has built a coterie of fans; President Bush's brother Jonathan has seen the show seven times and held his birthday party there. "It's no longer enough to go to the theater and just sit and stare," says Jonathan Scharer, producer of Pageant and Forbidden Broadway. "People have more fun when they can have a drink and relax, cool off and feel comfortable."

Not all the New York shows provide classic entertainment. Prom Queens is a way-too-familiar pastiche of '50s high school intrigue and sci-fi frissons; it plays like Little Shop of Grease. Hasselfree's The Edge of the Knife, with a soap-opera setting, gets most of its humor from the audience; participants are asked to guess the murderer's identity and motive. A bit higher up the food chain, Forever Plaid uses the singers' plangent harmonics to camouflage a thin book. And you need a doctorate in Broadway shows and lore to get all the jokes in the new edition of Forbidden Broadway -- but for insiders, and good guessers, the musical malice has its own witty thrill.

At the very least, theatergoers get an inexpensive night out: food-and- entertainment packages range from $33 (Prom Queens) to $75 (Tony n' Tina's top). At best, as in Song of Singapore and Pageant, audiences are reminded of theater's power to create a world out of song and shadow -- to offer circus and stage, nightclub and Kiwanis Club, in one beguiling bundle.

And what could be more entrancing than the six beauties in Pageant? They are finalists in the Miss Glamouresse contest, emceed by Frankie Cavalier (J.T. Cromwell), a showman with hilarious hair and dimples divine. The young ladies perform in swimsuit and talent competitions; Miss Bible Belt (Randl Ash), whose "hobbies include prayer and fasting," sings the rafter-raising hymn Bankin' on Jesus and speaks in tongues. The contestants also hawk the new Glamouresse products: Lip Snack, a beauty and food aid ("the prettiest protein you'll ever eat"); Smooth-as-Marble Facial Spackle, for the large- pored gal; and the environmentally correct Hair Aware with Air Repair ("in a virtually asbestos-free canister"). But the goal of these living Barbie dolls is higher than mere commerce. They are embodying a woman's unique role: to look beautiful "so the world is a better place and men have something nice to look at while they run it."

The contestants are nice to look at -- knockouts, a couple of them. They are also played by men. This twist gives the burlesque a wierd glow and cues some wonderfully precise writing and acting. Pageant, conceived and directed by Robert Longbottom, never degenerates into drag queens unchained. Like Miss Industrial Northeast (Joe Joyce), who roller-skates while playing the Sabre Dance on her accordion, the show is perfectly poised on the precipice of farce. And like Miss West Coast (John Salvatore), who performs an interpretive dance called "The Seven Ages of Me," Pageant is all about ego and the denial of self -- about the eagerness of Americans to let others, even a cosmetics manufacturer, define what will make them feel lovelier and more loved. It is + also the funniest spectacle in or outside a cabaret.

And Song of Singapore is the most gorgeous. Even the lobby is exotic: red lacquer walls, Oriental screen and chandelier. You climb a flight of stairs and are greeted by a hostess, statuesque in a turquoise mandarin-collar dress. Then you enter a cavernous hall, festooned with birdcages and red lanterns. It is December 1941 and this is Freddy's Song of Singapore Cafe, and the dance floor in front of the bandstand is crowded with couples. Other patrons sit at the surrounding tables, drinking "Singapore libations" or ordering a light dinner. A photographer, PRESS card stuck in the band of her fedora, snaps your picture. Everyone, young and old, is living it up. The show hasn't started and already there's more dazzle and camaraderie than at a $100-a-seat Broadway behemoth.

The show (held in a Polish Army Veterans meeting hall voluptuously reimagined by designer John Lee Beatty) is as handsome as its setting. Forget the plot -- we have -- about stolen jewels and an amnesiac chanteuse. As directed by A.J. Antoon, Singapore is all deft showmanship. Its songs are joyous evocations of razzmatazz jazz; its jokes propel the story and tickle the customers; its actor-musicians seem a true ensemble, guys who have gigged together for years and are having too much fun to stop. (No surprise here: three of them are writer-performers who have been developing the show since 1983.) And as the dazed chanteuse, charismatic Donna Murphy exudes a Rita Hayworth musk through a Sarah Vaughan voice. In her we have seen the '40s afresh, and we are in love.

Bankrolled at $1 million, Song of Singapore is the most lavish of the new shows. But it earns your money, as does the more modest Pageant, by expending ingenuity. It demolishes the imaginary fourth wall -- the one that separates movie and TV viewers from the action on the screen -- with comedy, atmosphere, music, magic.

Theatergoers of the world, delight! Take a fast boat to New York and a taxi to Singapore. Drinks are on us.

With reporting by William Tynan/New York, with other bureaus