The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 21

its Fun in the Falls It doesn't yet have 50 members, but the St. Brendan Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians proved in Cuyahoga Falls that it can sure put on a festival. The Scene, Page C6. The Beacon Journal Monday, June 13, 1994 PageC5 I Cm Midler exuberate? iBette on it- Details Concert: Bette Midler Where: Blossom Music Center, 1145 W. Steels Comers Road, Cuyahoga Falls When: 8 p.m.

Tuesday Cost: $25, $65, $75 Information: 920-8040 tv 1 Whether it's on stage -br over phone, her knack for entertaining, making a point shines through BYJ.D.CONSIDINE Baltimore Sun The art of conversation is not dead. Granted, it may not be as widely practiced as it once was, -but there are still those capable of turning a few moments of chatter into a witty and engaging bit of wordplay. Take Bette Midler, for example. It's one thing to be funny when you've carefully choreographed every bit of stage business, quite another to seem equally witty in an ad-lib. But as anyone who's caught Midler's current act on stage knows, some of the funniest moments in the show are her off-the-cuff cracks between songs.

Midler can be just as entertaining in casual conversation, too. She rang up recently from Charleston, S.C., as her current tour was just getting under way (Tuesday's stop is at Blossom Music Center) and talked about everything from music to why it is that other singers aren't as hilarious onstage. Q. When you were out on tour last summer, it was pretty im- Review Review A show designed for true believers Moody Blues bring everything but surprise By David Sowd Special to the Beacon Journal Thousands of the faithful, their faces expressionless masks, bore witness by holding candles aloft as they sat silently, letting the spirit wash over them. No, not the Billy Graham Crusade in Cleveland.

We're talking the Moody Blues concert at Blossom Music Center on Friday night. Specifically, during the performance of Nights in White Satin. No matter that this endlessly requested FM radio classic is, in the words of one distinguished rock critic, possibly the most "drippily mo- ronic" dirge in the history of More pop music. To Moody Blues the or so fans from across bhssed-out, the nation gath- it rings with Falls for a pre-the cosmic concert love fest. profundity of a The Scene, Page divinely in- C6.

spired hymn. The Moody Blues, after all, aren't simply another dinosaur rock band from the "British invasion" era. As a fa- mous local deejay once observed. "They're a religion." These pontificating popsters Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Ray Thomas and Graeme Edge have been bringing their pretentious gospel message to the masses every summer for the last quarter-century. Which is to say, the exact same canon of overwrought, concept-album hits delivered in exactly the same way they were recorded 'only now with the bombastic backing of an extra drummer, dual keyboardists, dancing harmony singers and a 55-piece orchestra (for Friday's show, a pickup group of local players dubbed the "Ohio Festival under the baton of Moodys arranger-conductor Larry Baird: Tuesday Afternoon, a Slide Zone, I'm Just a Singer (in a Rock and Roll Band), Ride My Seesaw, The Story in Your Eyes, Isn't Life Strange? All the usual, suspects.

It sounds lame on paper. And in person, it sounded even lamer. But the Moodys' Blossom show offered the additional sorry spectacle of Hayward and Lodge mugging together front-to-back, the way rock guitar slingers do when they're "getting down" during instrumental duets. And of the fifty-something Thomas snapping his fingers to the beat while waiting for the few chances he gets every evening to finally play his flute. Next year, save your $27.50 and stay home with the stack of pais-, ley-covered albums that are a fixture on every '70s survivor's shelf.

Bette Midler, who performs at Blossom Music Center on Tuesday, says expects performers to be entertainers. Bigg, Spinella win top Tony Awards 'Passion' triumph as best play and musical New enthusiasm for the 'Pirates' Cast gives same staging, dances and jokes fresh slant pressive to see how fast your jokes came, and how much of it clearly was stuff that wasn't in the show the night before, and probably wouldn't be there the night after. People don't do that onstage anymore. A. Hrarara.

I guess that's true. Well, the style of performing has changed a lot. I think I'm a throwback. I might be the last of a certain type of performer. When people go to concerts, they expect to have someone who sings, plays the guitar or plays the piano, has a band, and musicians aren't, they don't (laughs) They don't tell jokes! They don't chatter.

They just play. I've never seen Garth Brooks, but they tell me he's quite entertaining. I hear Jimmy Buffett is very entertaining. But there's a certain tradition of entertainer that See BETTE, Page C7 policemen fear the pirates, and so on. Young Frederic is to be free from his indenture to the pirates on his 21st birthday; but when he starts to break away, they remind him that as a leap-year baby, he is only 5.

Gilbert liked to put these puzzles of time and logic into his plays. Pirates is spun from just a few conundrums, which is different from the usual "light" opera layers of plots and subplots. It was vintage James Stuart as the Major-General arguing about "orphan" and "often." Ohio Light Opera's artistic director always steps in for those characters who are simultaneously pompous and befuddled, and he knows how to make them goofily endearing. Boyd Mackus was a strong vocal and visual presence as the Pirate King. Catherine Robison was also secure in her challenging vocal lines, and she made the most of Mabel, who is not developed as fully as some of Gilbert's other think they were kidding.

People feel Barney's unthreatening. But he could lead grown-ups to drugs." Coincidentally "It was too coincidental to be a coincidence." Grand Isle, Mayor Andy Valence about charges of price fixing in the shrimping industry. This day in music 1972 Clyde McPhatter, the first lead singer of the Drifters, dies. Age 38. He leaves the group before it hits it big.

Hey, fair's fair! Acquitted of obscenity charges in a jury trial, a video shop owner in Grand Haven, has billed the police nearly $8,000 in overdue rental fees on the X-rated tapes that were rented by an undercover agent and used against him in court, Playboy reports. Details Operetta: The Pirates of Penzance Where: College of Wooster, Freedlander Theatre, College Avenue at University Street When: In repertory through Aug. 5 Cost: Call: 263-2345 James Stuart, artistic director, does double duty. heroines. Chad Shelton as Frederic has a vibrant tenor voice, though missing a few closing consonants in dialogue.

Patti Jo Stevens really nailed the part of Ruth, which in some other Ohio Light Opera productions has been done more demurely. She is hilarious to watch, and knows when to bring a hint of Broadway into her full operatic singing. Craig Phillips' Sergeant of Police had a big, resonant sound. The Ohio Light Opera has been through many production and lighting designers. That's one thing that keeps the repeated shows fresh, but this time it looked as though two designers had their hands in.

Act 1 had a cartoon-like backdrop and the second act a realistic (though handsome) set. Barney: Kids love him, but parents well t5i JTT Judith Shaking hand a she comes from a generation that It was SpineUa's second consecutive Tony win. He picked up the featured actor prize last year for playing the same character in Millennium Approaches, the first half of the epic Angels in America. The expected Mickey Mouse (Beauty and the Beast) vs. Stephen Sondheim (Passion) battle for the top musical prizes never materialized.

Beauty and the Beast, a lavish stage version of the Walt Disney animated movie, won one award, for costume design. Carousel and An Inspector Calls were chosen as best musical revival and play revival. Jessica Tandy, Broadway's original Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Hume Cronyn, Tandy's actor husband, were the first recipients of a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement. 2. You're a guy; you go in for a nose job and come out a 36 Tri-ple-D.

1. Your name is Cher. Oodles of ODs await Not leaving anything to chance this time around, Woodstock '94 organizers are desperately seeking 900 volunteer medical workers, including doctors and nurses, to staff two "hospitals" that will be set up at the Saugerties, N.Y., site for the Aug. 13-14 extravaganza. If you qualify, you'll get a ticket to the show, Woodstock 25th anniversary trinkets, a place to sleep and free meals.

The man to see or write to is Dr. Ferdinand Anderson of Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, N.Y. Squeezingly seductive "I shook hands with Bill Clinton once, before he was president, and shaking hands with Bill Clinton is, in and of itself, a full body sexual By Martha Hancock Special to the Beacon Journal WOOSTER: Light opera is fun but it's not very light; usually, it 1, means complicated, silly plots or hours of achy-breaky emotion. The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert r- and Sullivan, in contrast, is neat and nimble as a pocket watch, and even ends at a civilized hour. Saturday night in the College of Wooster's Freedlander Theater, the diction was elegant and the voices secure among the pirates, policemen and "bevy of beautiful maidens." The Ohio Light Opera is presenting it with the same staging, dances and jokes as in previous years, but the asm in the cast is fresh.

All the characters are lightweights; indeed, watching them is like seeing childhood's tin soldiers and paper dolls come to life. What keeps them from toppling over, and makes the play appealing, is their earnest belief in each other: Mabel admires the policemen, the BARNEY GETS HIS Barney, that cloying Jurassic geek, meets his maker one twisted one-liner at a time in Michael Viner's new book, Final Exit for Barney. Suggestions for offing the purple dinosaur include: "Send him to Dr. Kevorkian for a checkup." "Tell Lorena Bobbitt he cheated on her." "Have him adopt Lyle and ErikMenendez." The idea for the book came dur-J ing the taping of the audiobook of Derek Humphry's suicide guide, Final Exit. Viner, who noticed that every parent he knew "began to twitch when you say told Entertainment Weekly: "There's a society for the prevention of cruelty to Barney, and they picketed my office.

I don't Avmcialtid Pliss New York: Diana Rigg, the vengeful title character of Medea, was named best actress in a play, and Stephen Spinella, the AIDS-afflicted hero of Angels in America: Perestroika won best actor in a play as the 1994 Tony Awards honored a Broadway season dominated by old shows. "I shall carry this home, not only this, but the wonderful memories of American audiences and playing on Broadway," Rigg said as she accepted her award. "It's been an incredible year," said a subdued Spinella, who then named four actor-friends who had died during the year. Angels in America: Perestroika, written by Tony Kushner, was named best play, while Passion, the work of composer Stephen Sondheim and author-director James Lapine, won for best musical. Hillary Clinton: Unsexy for a woman, sniffs a noted author 9.

In the operating room, you notice a lot of cans of Play-doh. 8. Your new cheek implants feel suspiciously like ketchup packets. 7. Paper bags with eyeholes for sale in the reception area.

6. His waiting room is crawling with Jacksons. 5. After several minutes in the sun, your forehead melts. 4.

At first visit, he nervously asks, "You didn't see 60 Minutes last Sunday, did you?" 3. The last thing you hear as you go under anesthetic is, "Sweet dreams, Mr. Face-on-your-ass!" ALill ILSrdT Krantz: the prez's real tum-on I promise you. He has the sexiest handshake of any man, that I have ever experienced in my entire life. It's about his hand, the size of his hand, the way he your hand, the way he doesn't let go until you let your hand go limp, because you're a little embar- rassed.

He is an intensely sexy man, and oddly enough, I find Hillary, attractive as she is, in- tensely unsexy for a woman." Author Judith Krantz (Scru pies), on Lifetime cable network's-Lifetime Magazine. The final word Researchers say that within i three years they may be able to genetically alter crops to make them resistant to pests. You know, if they can grow something that even flies won't eat, why would we want to eat it? Jay Leno Edited by Miclzey Porter from Beacon Journal wire services. lte can be reached at 996-384. "Business is business," said the owner, arguing that the police should have to abide by the store's rules, too.

The prosecutor told Playboy he'd return the tapes but called the late fees "totally ridiculous." Be a clock-stopper Top 10 signs you've chosen a bad plastic surgeon, courtesy of David Letterman: 10. Your nose is attached with Velcro..