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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 19, 1994                   TAG: 9402190098
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JOHN ANDERSON NEWSDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

`SIX DEGREES' IS CAUSTIC, MOVING SATIRE

With "Six Degrees of Separation," Fred Schepisi ("A Cry in the Dark") has made an actual movie of a successful play something of a risk, something of a feat. John Guare has adapted his much honored play for the screen. Using circular flashbacks, and seemingly incongruous visual asides (which eventually coalesce), Schepisi makes full use of what the camera can give him - the city itself becomes a character in the play - and without losing any of the rhythm of Guare's dialogue.

In disclosing the particulars of their disturbing case - how a well-spoken, obviously educated and intellectually passionate young man scammed his way into their home and confidence - Manhattanites Flan and Ouisa Kittredge (Donald Sutherland and Stockard Channing) no longer talk directly to the audience as they did in the play.

They're seen at a wedding, at dinner, at an artist's reception, recounting for their peers how the apparently mugged and bleeding Paul (Will Smith) arrived at their doorstep, told them he was the son of Sidney Poitier, regaled them with discourse on his Harvard thesis - stolen by his assailants - made them dinner and then, after being given money and invited to stay the night, was discovered with a gay male hustler in their own son's bed.

They're still committing an act of confession, of course, though neither would ever admit, or submit to, such an ecclesiastical indulgence. Their church is their caste, even if their particular pew is balanced treacherously between the altar of solvency and the perdition of debt. What Paul proves so damningly, and humiliatingly, is that becoming a parishioner requires little more than glibness, and familiarity with a few facts.

As Paul, Will Smith is the third gem in the setting, a street hustler who's trained himself, with the help of class-traitor Trent Conway (Anthony Michael Hall), to become a convincing counterfeit preppie. Trent has provided Paul with the details of the Kittredges' life: their children's names, the layout of their apartment, their two-sided Kandinsky ("Chaos ... Control," Ouisa repeats, as Flan spins the picture).

The nexus of the tale is whether Flan and Ouisa can sever their ties to the one person, however unsavory, with whom they've made a real connection. Even if they're all parasites, after all, they're all in it together.

Six Degrees of Separation:

Playing at the Grandin Theatre. Rated R for profanity, male nudity and sexuality.

by CNB