Dining Drinking

The Offbeat Room in Chicago (6344 N. Broadway) is touted as being "for people who usually don't like night clubs." For entertainment they have a jazz trio and a group called The Compass Players (aimed, presumably, at people who usually don't like theatre). A wild-eyed acquaintance recently collared us and insisted we take in the "new concept in theatre" being dished out by these fervent folks. Flatly denying there were any new concepts in theatre these days, we dropped in and were gratified to find we were right. It turned out to be a little like the commedia dell' arte of Renaissance Italy, Dr. Moreno's therapeutic psycho-drama, and the Acting Tech class of any drama school. The common bond among all these is improvisation -- the actors are given a basic situation and they get up and ad lib a playlet of sorts with sometimes interesting results. The Compass Players have a unique advantage over the other three institutions: liquor. After a few stiff ones, the new concept in theatre takes on a certain glow and the facile performers' agility in out-thinking and upstaging each other seems downright supernatural. It's not exactly acting, and it certainly isn't drama, but it is theatre (in the broad sense that includes flea circuses) and it's also a lot of fun. The night we were there, they were nice enough to do up an installment from Shepherd Mead's Playboy series on success with women. It got a lot of laughs from mellowed devotees on both sides of the footlights. The players are put away in mothballs on Mondays and Tuesdays, when the trio takes over. On all other nights, the improvisatori caper from 9 P.M. to closing.

Barnacled beams, spears, a couple of creese, shields, tom-toms and other tropical gee-gaws decorate the walls and ceilings of Skipper Kent's (1040 Columbus Ave.), a bit of Fiji in San Francisco. Once you cut your way through the bamboo and rattan jungle, we suggest you crawl quickly into a glass of rum and peer at the menu. The Skipper, a beachcomber from way back, takes flourishing pride in whipping up such elegant eastern edibles as Ceylon Chicken Curry and Lamb Sate and Numaki, the last of which is nothing less than a giant water chestnut skewered to a spicy chicken liver and wrapped in bacon. Our particular weakness, however, is the Lobster Flamedor, a succulent mess in which the meaty macrural crustacean is lifted from the shell and set afloat in a cheese and mushroom sauce, then doused with flaming rum and a load of spices. Getting back to that rum: there are 160 different kinds sitting on the back shelves of the bar, and you can order it neat, hot and buttered or in all sorts of dizzying mixtures. Skipper Kent's is open every night from 5 o'clock.

The Bayou is a Washington, D.C. jazz clinic located at 3135 K Street, N.W., under the Freeway in Old Georgetown. The brothers Tramonti run the place: Vincent, an attorney during the day, and Anthony, a dentist. At night, the brothers lay aside their tools of trade in favor of holding court for moldy fig fans in what vaguely resembles the hold of an old sailing ship. The fare consists of the bounding blue notes of Wild Bill Whelan and His Dixie Six, who shoot the musical works between 9 and midnight Mondays through Thursdays, till 1:30 A.M. on Fridays and midnight on Saturdays. For those who get restless on Sundays, Wild Bill and his heated half-dozen engage in jam sessions almost any time after 5 P.M., joined, often, by such twinkling lights as Jimmy McPartland, Phil Napoleon, Toni Parenti or Billy Butterfield. Between choruses, you might dig into some tasty Lobster Fra Diavolo or T-Bone Steak á la Pizzaioula. Week-end revelers would definitely do well to phone for reservations, because Dixie addicts use this Georgetown haunt as a regular resting place.