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Monday, October 24
LUCY IN LONDON (CBS, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). Anthony Newley takes Lucille Ball on a "Special economy guided tour" of London by motorcycle sidecar in this musical comedy special.
TO SAVE A SOLDIER (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). An ABC News color documentary chronicling the work of helicopter pilots, doctors and flight nurses who daily risk their lives evacuating and treating the wounded in Viet Nam.
THEATER
On Broadway
THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE by Frank Marcus is an abrasive English comedy of cruelty about the games Lesbians play. Beryl Reid, Eileen Atkins and Lally Bowers are expert and subtle as three witches and their vivid interpretations of the foolish and servile, the vain and the vile, stir up a cauldron of laughter.
MAME is spangles and feathers and clinking glasses from Prohibition cocktail parties. Mame was Patrick Dennis' Aunt. Mame was a funny book, a funny movie and a funny play. Mame is now a pleasing musical. Angela Lansbury is a pleasing Mame.
PHILADELPHIA, HERE I COME! The difficulty of severing the skeins to one's past is the theme in Brian Friel's delicately woven tapestry of a young Irishman saying farewell to his homeland.
SWEET CHARITY is all sincerity, one of those few foolish females who don't know that honesty may be the worst policy. In an inventively staged musical, GwenVerdon is a dance-hall doxy who is too direct to be devious, then wonders why she can t find the best bait to hook her man.
CACTUS FLOWER is a sex comedy from France that asks whether a don-juanish dentist (Barry Nelson) should ask his adoring assistant (Lauren Bacall) to be his accomplice in a plot against his mistress Would Samson ask Delilah to trim his hair?
WAIT A MINIM! There are two sets of stars in this musical revue from Johannesburg: a talented octet of young South African satirists, dancers and singers, and the mbira, timbila, kalimba, tampura drone, and other jungle instruments so primitive they are supersophisticated, so ancient they seem avantgarde.
RECORDS
Orchestral
HANS WERNER HENZE: FIVE SYMPHONIES (2 LPs: Deutsche Grammophon). The modern symphony, says Henze, tends to be either "a replica, an elegy or an echo," and he illustrates the point with his work, which is reminiscent of Stravinsky. The 40-year-old composer's symphonies are nonetheless enjoyable and full of theatrical flair, as might be expected from a man who has written such successful operas as King Stag and Elegy for Young Lovers. Here the first three works, dating from his early 20s, provide atmosphere but no action. The fourth is richer, unwinding in one movement from gentle plonks and smoothly flowing melodies to crashing cascades of sound. The fifth, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its first season at Lincoln Center, begins bright and brassy and then reverts to Henze's characteristic lyricism. The Berlin Philharmonic is conducted by the composer.