The Modesto Bee from Modesto, California • 32

ENTERTAINMENT TUESDAY OCTOBER 30 2001 The Modesto Hee Songs outshine Simon script now Playing on Sonora stage LEO STUTZIN ON the sparse opening-night turnout but the strength lies in its songs more than its script They're easy to hum and easy to hear reflecting a decade when romantic ballads routinely topied the charts Beside the title number the best include "Fallen" which follows the first meeting "If He Really Knew Me" mirroring their insecurities and "I Still Believe in Love" which brings the affair to a happy ending Darrel Llngenfelter contributes a sleek piano accompaniment Playing Our Song" runs through Nov 18 at Holman Foundry Playhouse Washington and Calaveras streets Sonora Shows start at 8 pm Thursdays through Saturdays 2 pm Sundays Tickets are $16 general $15 seniors $8 students from 532-0345 because spooked by neurotics who come on like balls of fire That pretty well describes fledgling lyricist Sonia Walsk (Stephanie Temple) who enters sizzling and never cools down The victim of her flakiness is Oscar-winning composer Vernon Gersch (Curtis Nelson) who not only tolerates her on-again-off-agaln antics but finds himself falling in love He's a fairly normal guy with fairly normal insecurities of the sort that plague any successful artist As played and sung by Nelson who contributes a warm presence and strong baritone easy to like The same be said about Sonia who seethes with impulsiveness and ego treating Vernon with alternating flashes nl awe and disdain Temple dispatches the role with aptly irritating energy and a voice that hits the right notes but falls a bit short on volume They're not only the principals but also the only speaking characters of this musical trifle not to say the only characters we meet however Visibly there's also a little chorus that shows up on occasion to turn Sonia's reveries and insecurities into lively song-and-dance routines Invisibly ex-boyfriend an incessant topic of conversation His neuroses presumably outshine hers and his middle-of-the-night phone calls turn her into a Florence Nightingale for whiny flakes one-liners drew laughs from between a couple of his friends composer Marvin Hamllsch and lyricist Carol Bayer Sager then tossed it at them They obviously liked what they saw contributed a batch of mostly romantic songs and aimed the result at Broadway What followed was no surprise Like just about everything Simon has touched in 40-plus years in theater it ran for years And like just about everything with Simon's name attached it has been standard fare for light entertainment ever since Let me confess here that Playing Our Song" has never been one of my favorite Simon shows probably iJ STAGE SONORA You don't have to be nuts to fall in love Playing Our Song" which opened Friday in a spirited Mountain Conservatory production at Holman Foundry Playhouse just makes it seem that way Playwrights and performers have exploited that premise for laughs for as long as humans have been frolicking on stages and probably will for as long as stages survive Few have done it more effectively and amusingly than Neil Simon Simon based his script loosely one hopes on the flinty-but-magnetic relationship This might be a prime time for TV to send in UNCLE Big names visit series Dashing style oddball villains were an best ratings weapon By DIANE WERTS NEWSDAY It worked like gangbusters once before So the problem now? Spy shows the big splash of the 2001 fall season are sinking CBS' Agency" and "UC: are Nielsen nightmares for their networks who were expecting big very big things Why not? TV did very well in the wake of Bond James Bond Baby boomers and their echo offspring the generations that now steer prime time have soft spots for the shows spawned by that movie secret agent Cable has since kept alive the '60s style of Man (and Girl) from "The "The Wild Wiki "Mission: Impossible" "I and yes even (You know a trend really clicks when even the spoof is a hit) Indeed style is precisely the point of the genre's one-time success and its seeming current failure Those vintage shows endure because got cool to burn If it studly Napoleon Solo and Jim West packing lethal gizmos under tuxedos and skin-tight leather it was Emma catsuit karate or John chipper quips was a stylistic overdose all self-destructing audio tape assignments and a percussive score so hip it hit the Top 40 These shows had a dashingness about them a devil-may-care attitude despite their threat of world annihilation Like our heroes ultimately going to save the day Not possible Even if the mission was im- Well now in- as in inconceivable Robert Vaughn left portrayed a suave American agent Napoleon Solo in the CBS series The Man from UNCLE' Diana Rigg above wore fashionable dresses and skintight leather outfits as British secret agent Emma Peel in The Avengers' Why were NBC's three series all among top 20 series the other week? Could be just so wonderful or it could be that their single-thread weekly resolution meets a new desire for closed-end storytelling ZAP2ITCOM Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will hobnob with next month Gates will appear on the sitcom on Nov 13 as part of strategy for sweeps month He will play a fan of the radio psychologist a list of network plans for sweeps: NBC: Sean Penn will appear on two episodes of starting Nov 1 and Parker Posey is due on "Will as are Blythe Danner Helen Slater and Beau Bridges on Thanksgiving Neil Patrick Harris will be on (Nov 14) and Tiffani Thiessen begins a recurring role Nov 1 on "Just Shoot ABC: Juliette Lewis Born will be on and William Shatner on (Nov 24) Queen Latifah Farrah Fawcett and Denise Richards appear on "Spin City" (Nov 6) in two episodes followed by Michelle Phillips and model Rhea Durham "Dharma has Pat Benatar and husband Neil Giraldo on Nov 20 CBS: Comedian Chris Elliot drops by "The King of (Nov 5) Early Jane Clayson will appear on (Nov 12)and singer Tobey Keith will perform on by an (Nov 23) Fox: Elton John and Jacqueline Bisset will be on (Nov 26) Former star Lucy Lawless will be in the Nov 11 "The with Cary Elwes Princess UPN: Tony Award winner Hinton Battle is on hand for the the Vampire musical Nov 6 Definition of a crisis sion series ever granted permission to film inside CIA but it so particularizes its threats that the network already has had to pull two episodes about anthrax and a terror bombing (the latter actually naming Osama bin Laden) Still to premiere Nov 6 is the buzzed-about Fox entry a layered adventure depicting one real-time hour per episode Kiefer Sutherland's hero the Counter Terrorist asked to thwart the plot to assassinate a black presidential candidate Fox quickly cut a premiere scene involving an exploding airliner See how specific these details are? And how reliant on the real world? That was no problem for '60s spies Evil was stylishly thwarted by each end Messages are mixed The new spy shows are mixed up aspires to nu-anced realism yet lingers on cool shots of cutely coiffed Jon Seda two-fistedly firing automatic weapons undercuts its human narrative of father-daughter trust with so much disjointed kiss- kiss-bang-bang that the show plays like a movie trailer These characters seem to exist except in our presence "Alias" and feature nerdy makers of high-tech gadgets who are designed less as people than animate collections of quirk The machinery there to explain is more real than they are "The spotlights lab forensic tactics -style The ubiquitous computers and electronic surveillance are hardly the pie-in-the-sky gadgetry of some scheme everyday elements of our own lives right here right now The same goes for the stakes this time around closer to home and more realistically probable than those old souped-up supercapers Spy scripters are stuck They seem to want timely substance but also timeless style They want authentic texture but also Hollywood polish They want real people who resonate like superheroes These diametrics are hard to reconcile Coming close in its no-nonsense pilot is But nobody has seen the second episode And you have to follow the show week to week for it to make sense Quite a crisis Napoleon Solo when we need him? And it just the bad timing of these new TV spies arriving just as actual "bad pull off the most spectacular clandestine mission ever The deeper problem is that our expectations have changed in the real world obviously but also in the universe of TV storytelling That first tube spy spate so much about world stakes as about gamesmanship The villains were demented loons or abstract organizations seeking power for its own sake Wild nemesis Dr Migueli-to Loveless a dwarf was a mad scientist baddie Mother Muffin was Boris Karloff in a dress Even the most reality-based agents the pair of Bill Cosby and Robert Culp approached their work as a more cerebral game The rules seemed clear These shows were running in the 1960s amid the Cold War the Cuban Missile Crisis Vietnam combat over opposing doctrines and yet communism barely merited a mention? Kiss that escapism goodbye Ideologies are crucial to the new spy shows NBC says portrays elite Justice Department crime-fighting that takes down international drug lords At CBS is not only first televi Complex plots are longer Those demarcations are gone On the young student-spy heroine works for the CIA But the main agency and then a group of rogue operatives although they could be the reverse of what we think which is the reverse of what our heroine had been told Which is another reality-based message Nothing is what it seems On top of that we have longtime trend toward delayed drama gratification Trying to reflect reality and deepen character plots can stretch for weeks Some ends stay loose forever Yet that drama mold is being pulled every which way right now Young viewers are treated to nothing but boo skies for Halloween a haunted ending to these stories Nope The only fear here is what you conjure up Scooby-Doo rates an A all the way It seems that just about everyone loves these canine capers which look stylishly retro with the hippie dippy colors groovy clothes and silly plots Cartoon Network takes advantage of popularity too with regular specials in addition to its daily dose of dog at 4:30 am For the 24 hours of Halloween the network is airing original episodes of Where Are as well as several Scoo-by movies including Meets the Addams and "The Dynamic Scooby-Doo cartooning of the lightest and goofiest kind the perfect end for a Halloween day or is a daylong Halloween marathon on Discovery Kids digital channel The Scooby-Doo marathon runs trom 3 am Wednesday through 2 am Thursday on Cartoon Network than the count from Transylvania" In the next scene she introduces Dracula as he appeared in a 1922 German film clip And a scary image it is The program then covers the meanings behind Bram famous horror story pointing out that Dracula might represent Britons late-1800s fear of foreigners Another episode explores the myths of werewolves The eerie music spooky setting and gruesome engravings from old books would lead you to believe By JEANNE SPREIER KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS A good fright in fun is what many kids want or Scare" despite its low lighting dark shadows and chaos of candles is just right for kids who like being scared (sort of) but have the internal fortitude to make it through the night after the fright The Halloween daylong marathon of or is being aired on Discovery digital Discovery Kids network "Truth or aims to please the 6- to 13-year-old group of kids Still first- through third-graders might find this program too spooky to sit through while teen-agers might find it pleasantly offbeat The programs are 30-minute minidocumentaries that take on events of paranormal or superstitious phenomena One episode for instance tackles vampires comes in many intones the host Michelle Trachtenberg the Vampire never been a monster more terrifying Vwnfim MODESTO 10 theatres I Voted 1 Best Area Movie Theatre ALL LUCASFILM THX DIGITAL SOUND THX All the Time All the Shows wwwbrendentheatrescom 10th St Modesto across from the Double Tree Hotel v- Free Parking at IQth St Garage 1 ignature Theatres Check Us Out At: WWWslgnaturetheatrescom DAILY BARGAIN MATINEES All Shows Before 6PM mm Plenty of Free Parking A NO PASSESSATs 1 557-9811 MODESTO STADIUM 10 3969 McHenry Ave ALL STADIUM SEATING ALL DIGITAL SOUND CORKY ROMANO (PG-13) 12402:504 457 20 9:25 TRAINING DAY (R) 12:102:405:107:4510:10 A RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS (PG-13) 1004 00 7:00 9:45 SERENDIPITY (PG-13) 12 453005 157 30 940 BAN0ITS IPG-13) 1205 2 355 057 40 10 15 DON'T SAY A WORD (R) 12:00 2 20 4 40 7 10 9 35 and still in the parade KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS Despite the sagging ratings for and Again" co-creator Marshall Herskovitz worried about the Sela Ward-Billy Campbell family drama "ABC has been incredibly Herskovitz said "We are always mindful that the TV landscape is volatile but we have particular concerns right and (10 pm Fridays) ranks 75th on ratings list Its competition: Order: Special Victims and ABC has ordered 23 episodes of Herskovitz plan to deal with the Sept 11 terrorist attacks but they will be mentioned next month "In the context of Thanksgiving and talking about family life it was germane We just added a few lines of dialogue to the he said 664-3620 TURLOCK STADIUM 14 2323 Main St THIR1 SEN GHOSTS- R) Mon-Thurs (2:20 3:00 4:40 5:20) 9 7:00 7:40 9:20 K-PAX (PG-13) Mon-Thurs (1:00 3:20 4:00) 6:20 7:00 9:30 9 BONES (R) Mon-Thurs (1:30 4:00) 6:30 9:00 ON THE LINE (PG) Mon-Thurs (2:30 4:50) 7:10 9:40 HIGH HEELS R) Mon-Thurs (2:00 4:30) 7:00 9:10 THE LAST CASTLE (R) Mon-Thurs (1:20 4:20 5:00) 7:30 8:20 RIDING IN CARS WITH BOVS (PG-13) Mon-Thurs (1:30 3:40 4:30) 6:40 9:40 FROM HELL (R) Mon-Thurs (1:00 3:50) 6:50 7:30 9:30 CORKY ROMANO (PG-13) Mon-Thurs (2:20 4:40) 5:50 9:00 TRAINING DAY (R) Mon-Thurs (1:10 2:40 5:30) 5:40 8:30 IRON MONKEY (PG-13) Mon-Thurs (1:40 3:50) 6:30 8:40 BANDITS IPG-13) Mon-Thurs (1:00 3:40) 6:30 9:10 DON'T SAY A WORD R) Mon-Thurs (1:10 4:10) 6:50 9:20 JOY RIDE R) Mon-Thurs (4:10) 9:30 MAX KEEBLE (PQ) Mon-Thurs (2:30) wnnmm IRON MONKEY (PG-13) FRI-SUN: (11:05) AM ONLY MON-THURS: (1:15) ONLY ON TWO SCREENS K-PAX (PG-13) (THX) FRI-SUN 1110011 301 402 154 405 05) 725 755 1010 1035 M0N-1HURS (1 25 2 104 005 10)7 50830 A FROM HELL (R) FRI-SUN (11 20 1 554 45)7 30 10:25 MON-THURS (1:30 4 15) 7 45 TRAINING DAY (R) FRI-SUN: (11:05 1 45 4 35) 720 10:20 1 MON-THURS (2:40 5 20) 7:55 ON TWO SCREENS A THIR13EN GHOSTS (R) FRI-SUN (11 40 12:15 2 052 35 4 255:00) 7:007:30 9259:55 MON-THURS (1:202 153:204:20) 805 7 40 B10 A RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS FRI-SUN: (11:10 200 460) 7:45 10:36 MON-THURS: (1:45 4:50) 7:50 SERENDIPITY (PG-13) FRI-SUN: (12 20 2:36 4:55) 7:20 9:50 MON-THURS: (2:004:10) 6:15 8:20 A ON THE LINE (PG) FRI-SUN (11:15 1 354 10) 7 05 9 20 MON-THURS (1:15 3 10) 6 25825 A BONES (R) (THX) FRI-SUN (11 25 1 504 20)7 10940 MON IHIJHS II 20 1 if) i HI I) 15 BANDITS (PG-13) FRI-SUN (11 20 2:00 4 55) 7 5010:30 MON-THURS (1454 JOY RIDE (R) FRI-SUN 8:00 1015 MON-FHURS 6108:25 0:30 A THE LAST CASTLE (R) FRI IUN (11:00 1 IB 1 40) 7 10 MON-FHURS (2:00 50)0) OO CORKY ROMANO (PG-13) FRI-SUN: (11:50 2:20 450) 7 15930 MON-THURS (1:30 208 20 MAX KEEBLES BIG MOVE (PG) FHI-SUN: (115 3:305:35) MM-Wins 1315).