Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 10, 1994                   TAG: 9401080088
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAUPIN

Something similar can be said for "Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City," a new six-hour "American Playhouse" miniseries airing on WBRA (Channel 15) tonight through Wednesday. Because the cast of characters includes homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, plus people who fall somewhere in between, the film explores personalities and relationships unusual for a TV drama.

Obviously there is a lot more going on here than boy meets girl. Viewers who find the very concept objectionable are advised to steer clear, but for the open-minded, "Tales of the City" should prove to be refreshingly sophisticated entertainment.

Maupin's glib group portrait of hedonists and bohemians in San Francisco of 1976 was first published as a series of fictional articles in the San Francisco Chronicle. The TV version has elements of soap opera and sometimes resembles a sexier, franker version of "Melrose Place." It centers on residents of an apartment complex at 28 Barbary Lane presided over by Anna Madrigal, played majestically by Olympia Dukakis.

At first, "Tales of the City" might also be mistaken for an update of "My Sister Eileen," the oft-told tale of two sisters from Ohio who move to wacky Greenwich Village. Perky little Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) arrives in San Francisco from Ohio and crashes at the apartment of a fellow transplant named Connie.

But soon Singleton moves to Barbary Lane and is unofficially adopted by Mrs. Madrigal. She and her fellow residents come into contact with a wide variety of San Franciscans whose fates run parallel or intersect like lines on a map. Among the most memorable:

Michael Tolliver (Marcus D'Amico), a young gay man prone to disastrous affairs. He runs smack into Mr. Right, literally, while skating at a roller rink. D'Amico may give the most ingratiating performance in the whole film.

Mona Ramsey (Chloe Webb), who loses her job at an ad agency by screaming the word "crotch" at a pantyhose manufacturer, then sets off on her own journey of self-discovery. Webb, who starred on ABC's "China Beach," is heart-meltingly good.

Edgar Halcyon (Donald Moffat) runs the ad agency from which Mona was fired. Although he appears to have no visible symptoms (not until the sixth hour, anyway), his kidneys are failing and doctors give him six months to live.

Beauchamp Day (Thomas Gibson), Halcyon's slimy and heartless son-in-law, is also an account executive at the agency. He is flagrantly unfaithful to his wife Dede (Barbara Garrick), Halcyon's daughter, and has almost completely destroyed her self-esteem. But she shouldn't be counted out just yet.

Brian Hawkins (Paul Gross), a handsome waiter and compulsive womanizer, seems to be trying to turn promiscuity into an Olympic event. He's comfortable living amongst so many gay men he says, because "I just don't like competition."

There are many others, major and minor, smart and foolish, appealing and revolting, and they flutter about on wings of desire, sometimes colliding in ways that are amusing, ironic or shocking. Among those making quick cameos: Karen Black (as herself, at a fat farm), Lance Loud, Rod Steiger, Don Novello, and costume designer Bob Mackie.

Adapter Richard Kramer (one of the writers on ABC's "thirtysomething") and director Alastair Reid stage this as a heavily populated party that celebrates what the introduction calls "a time of innocence and romance," San Francisco in the pre-AIDS days of sexual liberation.

When Mary Ann takes the apartment, she asks landlady Madrigal if she has any objection to pets. "Dear," says Mrs. Madrigal, "I have no objection to anything."

If your PBS station shows the original, unedited version of "City," it will include strong language, some nudity (breasts and posteriors) and a couple male-male kisses. But stations have the option of showing a less racy edited version or, of course, of showing no version at all.

The luckiest viewers will see it unexpurgated. Even at its dullest or tawdriest moments, "Tales of the City" is still blessedly and rewardingly different. And "different" is what, at the very least, public TV should be.

Washington Post Writers Group