Critics' Voices: Mar. 30, 1992

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THEATER

JAKE'S WOMEN. Neil Simon's most nakedly autobiographical play, opening on Broadway this week, is also his most acidly self-critical. His enduring subject has been the emotional isolation of the artist, and he has never been more acute -- but there is nary a redemptive one-liner in earshot.

THE VIRGIN MOLLY. A soldier of dubious sexual orientation gives birth in this off-Broadway blend of bawdy barracks humor, blasphemy and brilliant surrealism.

ON THE OPEN ROAD. Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Tesich (Breaking Away) prefers the stage, where he can blend metaphysical ambition and gothic excess. In this tale of strugglers on the loose, there are echoes of Kerouac, Beckett and Reaganomics interwoven with Tesich's moral fervor. At Chicago's Goodman Theater.

TELEVISION

ROOM FOR TWO (ABC, debuting March 24, 9:30 p.m. EST). Linda Lavin and Patricia Heaton spar with panache as a widowed mother and her TV-producer daughter. Nothing new, but sitcoms far worse than this have spent years in the Nielsen Top 10.

A DOLL'S HOUSE (PBS, March 29, 9 p.m. on most stations). Ibsen's war-horse gets a powerful, unpatronizing new production in this Masterpiece Theater import. Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply) perfectly calibrates Nora's progress from docile wife to proto-feminist, and Trevor Eve avoids easy caricature as her husband Torvald. Superb.

THE ACADEMY AWARDS (ABC, March 30, 9 p.m. EST). In case you're looking for something to watch after the Barbara Walters Special.

MUSIC

STAN GETZ/KENNY BARRON: PEOPLE TIME (Verve). When the legendary tenor saxophonist Stan Getz died of cancer last June at age 64, the master of cool riffs and sultry melodic lines left an immense void in the jazz world. This two-volume set of duets with pianist Kenny Barron, recorded in Copenhagen only four months before Getz's death, combines passion, urgency and haunting beauty in a triumphant last testament.

CHARLES IVES: PIANO SONATA NO. 2; AARON COPLAND: PIANO SONATA (Cedille Records). Ives' great "Concord" Sonata is a massive four-movement impressionistic piece marked by dense, polytonal chords, rhythmic daring and wit. Rarely performed because of its difficulty, it is brought to life here by pianist Easley Blackwood, whose secure technique and long involvement with the work are sure to win it a wider audience.

MOVIES

HOWARDS END. E.M. Forster's novel of property and prejudice in Edwardian England is voluptuously rendered by director James Ivory and handsomely peopled by Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave and Anthony Hopkins. See it to savor the glory that England once was -- and that movies, all too rarely, can be.

BASIC INSTINCT. This confused thriller, about a detective (Michael Douglas) and a bisexual novelist (Sharon Stone) who may do her sharpest work with an ice pick, has some steamy skin scenes; that's what all the ratings ruckus was about. (The film lost less than a minute and got an R.) But there's something wrong with a whodunit if, at the end, viewers are still asking, "O.K., who done it?" The answer is director Paul Verhoeven. And the next question is: Why?