Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 43

A deluge of showers on the horizon3C V7 nf23rrvA Georgia Satellites spin into Met Center 10C Houlton's school readies first concert20C Ann Landers 13C TVRadlo18C Crossword puzile19C Comics 16C IS3 Dining out 7 or muxy I imH 1 "4- TV Eclectic menu calls one back to Faegre's By Jeremy IggersStaff Writer The most obvious occupational hazard of restaurant-reviewing is obesity but it's not the only one. When you dine out three or more times a week, it's easy to get bored. The palate becomes jaded; perspective is lost. Sometimes I start feeling as if I've seen it all before, and at many restaurants, I have. Whether the style is Cantonese, Italian, family restaurant or nouvelle Americaine, local menus tend to be awfully similar.

That's why i like Faegre's Bar Restaurant (5th St. and 1st Av. N. in downtown Minneapolis). I can go there again and again, confident that I'll find something on the menu that I've never tasted before.

Chef Ken Goff isn't afraid to roam across continents and cuisines, from Mexico to Japan to the Caribbean, in search of new flavors and flavor combinations. The result is a whole savory range that other chefs simply don't have in their repertoires: the peppery pungency of arugula lettuce, the aromatic, nutty flavor of Indian basmati rice, the savory subtlety of saffron. Some of the more exotic offerings might sound like trendiness for trendiness' sake, but the combinations almost always work, whether it's a small course of spaghetti cooked barely aldente with fresh asparagus, dill and a St. Andre cream sauce or a grilled beaten steak marinated in peppers and cumin, topped with a spicy puree of ancho chile peppers Faegre's does have a reputation as a yuppie hangout, and menu items like a salad of fresh blackberries, arugula, shiitake mushrooms and goat cheese do nothing to dispel the image. But the cuisine isn't all made-up on the ossor bucco ($1 1 veal shanks braised with wine in a garlic-caper sauce, is a classic Venetian dish, given a very traditional preparation.

A terrine of scallops and sea bass ($5.75) is another classic, ephemerally I 1 ii Staff Photo by Brian Peterson Caroline Lagerfelt and Daniel Davis in "The A beautifully acted and exquisitely designed Guthrie opener. Rich Hlisan ope' gives Wright good st ari as Guthrie director light and delicate, topped with a very rich sauce furore, i Goff avoids the cliches. The soups are subtle; a cream of asparagus with mushrooms and Riesling wine ($3.25) is not the usual high butterfat prepara- tion, but a darker, full-bodied soup. A bisque of 4 conch and spicy, dried Mexican ancho chile peppers strikes just the right balance: enough cream for By Mike SteeleStaff Writer 0 3 A review arland Wright's tenure as artistic di-. rector of the Guthrie Theater could hardly be off to a better start: a season-opening production of Moliere's sung outside the door.

The brilliance and difficulty of the play is that, like most works of genius, it is both simple and complex. At first glance it seems the happiest of comedies, based on a single, witty conceit. As it unwinds, it turns ever darker and more ambiguous and takes on a final knife-edge sharpness. Alceste, an intelligent and refined man in the upper reaches of an ultrarefined and cultivated society, refuses to lie. He tells people to their faces what others would only whisper behind their backs.

He despises hypocrisy, faithlessness, stupidity, injustice virtually everyone and everything that makes up his society. The first act is a parade of overstuffed, over-refined, self-consciously mannered hypocrites, RECORDINGS Whitney Houston's recycled blockbuster to enshrine three huge, golden braziers. With the jut, the symmetry of the stage is thrown off balance to create a picture of an elegant, over- -refined society just out of sync. It's a nifty visualization of the society that will be seen slowly deteriorating as the next two hours unfold. Wright has moved the play from Moliere's own 17th century to 1792, specifically five months before Louis XVI's execution and the abolition of the monarchy.

While the play begins in bright colors with sounds of gunfire barely heard in the distance, it ends in darkness with rocks coming through windows and the "Marseillaise" lustily masterly comedy "The Misanthrope" that almost perfectly captures its shifting emotional colors and darkening social undercurrents. It's Moliere done richly not with'style-glutted precociousness or hankie-waving buffoonery, but with a sense of the complexity of Moliere's beautiful comic tapestry and the social fabric -from which it came. It's played over Joel Fontaine's smart, sumptuous setting: a colonnaded black, white and gold loggia that juts across the left rear of the stage 4 JU A 'Witches' lets Nicholson polish madman's image 3 (lv) i Jr 1 (tVrr -Til A review MOVIES Local boy makes voodoo thriller Li The disappointing thing is that the rest of the movie doesn't measure up. The first half is an extremely entertaining battle of the sexes, based on John Updike's light-hearted best seller of the same name. Then it makes a sudden turn into the grisly occult territory of Stephen King (with lengthy scenes of projectile vomiting) and the spe- cial effects world of George Lucas (with grotesque creatures sculpted by Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic).

It's a tribute to Nicholson's talent that the outcome of this radical change in mood is limited to mere disappointment. Were it not for the star's bravura efforts, the switch from low-key comedy to high-tech hocus pocus could have been the death of the film. The immense reservoir of charisma Nicholson banks early in the story carries it By Jeff StricklerStaff Writer Jack Nicholson set the Hollywood standard for portrayal of a madman in 1 980 "The Shining." Now he perfects the role, taking it to glowing new heights in "The Witches of Eastwick." i Nicholson is nothing short of brilliant in an electrifying performance that mixes manic eeriness with a delightful comedic flair. A devilish Incarnation whose appearance wreaks havoc upon a sleepy New England town, he attacks the role with a tortured face, a raucous laugh and an outrageous wardrobe. Bewitching: Clockwise, Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Cher.

mimML i vA 4-aa-M mil i i 'I Riggs alum Tolan returns with own play (oYdining Guide to Home Repair," will get its world premiere Saturday at Riggs' ETC in Minneapolis. Though it has the same snappy sort of title long associated with Riggs shows, this is different, Tolan said. So is he. At 28, the baby fat is gone and Tolan is "getting beyond jokes to real people," he said. "When I was younger I was a buffoon pure.

Now I'm writing shows the actors have to approach seriously. If they drop their pants, it's death." His show is about men, he said by phone from New York. "It starts from the point of view that men are, like, hopeless and doomed: really By Mike SteeleStaff Writer Back in the early '80s, Peter Tolan was hot stuff as a cast member of Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop: a baby-faced guy with a penchant for quick quips and musical gags. Then this crowd favorite left town first for New York, then 'or Boston, where he opened a Riggs-style operation called the Boston Baked Theatre, then for New York again, where he has been writing shows and working in clubs with his partner, Linda Wallem, another former Riggs star. Tolan's latest show, "Fixing Men: A Woman's I 1.