Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 27, 1995                   TAG: 9510270049
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`COWBOY CAFE' ISN'T QUITE ALL IT COULD BE

But as it is, the new musical at Mill Mountain Theatre is only partly hilarious, and is otherwise confused about what it wants to be.

Is it an over-the-top spoof of your stereotypical barbecue honky-tonk? Or is it a bittersweet ode to musical dreamers and truck-driving cowboys?

Who knows?

That's not to say ``Cowboy Cafe,'' which opens the 1995-96 season for Mill Mountain Theatre, is a total failure. Far from it. At a preview performance Wednesday night, the musical had its moments.

Credit here should go mostly to the cast, particularly Pebble Daniel and David Ippolito.

Daniel plays Billie Joe, the aging barbecue queen who runs the Cowboy Cafe and Motel in Success, Ark., with characteristic roadhouse bravado. Ippolito plays Les, a songwriting trucker with a soft spot in his heart for Billie Joe's oldest daughter, Louisa.

It's characters like Billie Joe and Les that set things up for a huge farce. ``Elvis said mine was the best he ever had,'' she says by way of introduction. He thought her barbecue was pretty good, too. And Les sings: ``She's a beauty, heavy-duty, she's my truck.''

The set also hinted at the playful tone, with its Elvira and the Party Monsters pinball machine, its posters-on-the-wall shrine to country singers like Willie Nelson, and its rack of motel keys with cactus-shaped key chains.

But ``Cowboy Cafe'' holds back from becoming the full farce it could have been.

Billie Joe and Les are never allowed to cut loose like they should. And the other main players, Billie Joe's three children - Louisa, Missi and Tex - are reined in even more. The result is that, instead of belly-laughs, the show offers up only intermittent chuckles.

Another problem is that, although the nearly two-dozen musical numbers roll along at a lively pace, there is little in the way of story and plot to hold them together - a serious flaw, even for a musical.

Sure, there are a few conflicts. Will Les and Louisa ever find true love? Will jealousy come between Missi and Louisa? And what will happen to the Cowboy Cafe now that the Army Corps of Engineers has decided to tear down the levees along the Mississippi River and flood the town?

Yet all of these questions seem to have been added as an afterthought. In fact, it is five songs into the first act before any plot elements are introduced.

The songs are the real emphasis. Only, here again, they are inconsistent in tone. They go from spoofing tear-in-your-beer songs in one number to offering up a real tear-in-your-beer song in a later number.

Plus, although many of the songs are catchy and have clever lyrics, they aren't inspiringly original. Nor is there a true showstopper in the bunch. And that is often the final test of a good musical.

``Cowboy Cafe'' has its charm. It just doesn't offer anything memorable to hum past the exits.

``Cowboy Cafe'' opens tonight and runs through Nov. 12 on Mill Mountain Theatre's Main Stage. Tickets are $14-18. Call 342-5740.