THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502030086
SECTION: TELEVISION WEEK PAGE: 1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY BONKO TELEVISION COLUMNIST
LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
PLAYWRIGHT AUGUST Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning ``The Piano Lesson'' airs Sunday night at 9 on CBS as the latest ``Hallmark Hall of Fame'' production.
Wilson said he wrote the part of dreamer Boy Willie with actor Charles Dutton in mind. Sunday night, watch Dutton recreate the role he played on the stage five years ago.
In the drama set in 1936, Dutton visits his sister (Alfre Woodard), hoping to talk her out of the family's old and ornately carved player piano. He wants to sell it and invest the money in the Mississippi bottom land his family worked as slaves. Woodard resists.
And so are sown the seeds of a fine drama.
``To do this play before the cameras for posterity was a joyous experience,'' Dutton told TV writers in Los Angeles during the semi-annual press tour. ``The joy of doing the language of the play, and of recalling all the tender moments, was special for everyone involved.''
The camera liberates the play and lets it fly. TV enables the director, Lloyd Richards, to show Boy Willie atop his watermelon truck, shouting his sales pitch.
``Television gives a newness to the play,'' Richards said.
Elsewhere on the TV landscape: Can you believe it? ``Married . . . With Children,'' the Fox sitcom that has defined tastelessness in prime time for almost a decade, will mark its 200th episode Sunday night at 8:30 with a retrospective hosted by author and raconteur George Plimpton.
If ever a TV series needed a touch of class, it's the life and times of the family Bundy.
After trotting out every double entendre the writers could think of in the past nine seasons, and doing every ``dumb blonde'' line known to western man, ``Married . . . With Children'' still has life.
In January, it was the second highest rated series on Fox behind ``The Simpsons,'' with an 11.0 rating and 16 share. It's the 13th most popular series in syndication and a big hit locally on WGNT weeknights at 7 p.m.
Of the sitcoms in prime time, none has been on the air longer than ``Married . . . With Children,'' the saga of a shoe salesman, his wife and their oddball kids.
Why so much staying power for a sitcom that hardly wins an Emmy or Golden Globe nomination, much less an award?
``Because people relate to `Married . . . With Children,' '' said Christina Applegate when the cast met TV critics in Los Angeles not long ago. She doesn't mind one whit playing the dumb blonde daughter.
Katey Sagal, cast as Peg Bundy in a wig as imposing as Mount Olympus, says the formula for success is simple. ``On our show, the viewers see things in themselves that make them laugh.
Ed O'Neill, who told the TV writers that he and the other cast members are prepared to continue their roles indefinitely with Fox, believes the series has been snubbed by voters in the Emmy and Golden Globe awards' voting.
``What's the difference between what we do and what they do on the shows that are nominated every year?'' O'Neill asked of shows such as ``Seinfeld'' and ``Home Improvement.''
``How much better are those shows than ours?''
A must-see TV production in the days to come: Glenn Close stars in ``Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story'' on NBC Monday night at 9. Most of the buzz surrounding this film, about an Army colonel forced out of service when she admits her homosexuality, concerns the kiss between Close and Judy Davis.
PBS on Monday at 9 p.m. begins a two-part series about the Federal Bureau of Investigation, ``Inside the FBI,'' starting with a history lesson in Part 1. See the FBI break up a ring of car thieves and raid the hideout of a Dallas drug dealer.
Part 2 on Wednesday at 9 p.m. explores the FBI's role in defending national security. The agents' suits, ties and fedoras have been replaced by flak jackets and helmets in an America growing more violent by the day.
Also on PBS and WHRO, Michael Palin does his imitation of Phileas Fogg in ``Around the World in 80 Days'' starting Saturday night at 8. He begins the journey aboard the Orient Express. A cracking-good seven-part series once seen on A&E . . . On Tuesday at 8 p.m. on PBS, Nova explores the technology and engineering that built the World War II death camps in ``Nazi Designers of Death.'' The liberation of Auschwitz took place 50 years ago.
O.J. Simpson wasn't the first and isn't likely to be the last famous person to face a judge and jury. To prove that it has happened before, A&E on Wednesday night at 8 presents ``American Justice: Celebrities on Trial.'' . . Fair Lady: More Loverly Than Ever'' is about the heroic effort to restore the film's original faded and brittle negative. At 10, you'll get to see the movie in all its restored glory . . . Serious stuff on the ABC sitcom ``Family Matters'' Friday night at 8. It's about muggings, threats and firearms on school grounds . . . MTV, the cable channel of escapism, takes viewers to the Colorado ski slopes Saturday from 1 to 6 p.m. for the ``Mount MTV Winter Carnival.'' Take a sleigh ride with VJ Daisy Fuentes.
The Sci-Fi Channel this month revives the 1974 cult classic ``Kolchak: The Night Stalker'' weeknights at 9. The series lasted only one year on ABC but refuses to die . . . A&E brings back another story that won't die - the sinking of the White Star liner Titanic. A&E will show two specials, starting Saturday night at 8 with ``Titanic: Death of a Dream'' and followed on Sunday at 8 p.m. by ``Titanic: The Legend Lives On.'' . . . HBO's tribute to Black History Month includes ``Whitney - The Concert for a New South Africa'' on Monday at 8 p.m. . . . A&E on Monday at 8 digs into the life of the Rev. Jesse Jackson for ``Biography: Jesse Jackson. I Am Somebody.'' ILLUSTRATION: Charles Dutton stars as Boy Willie Charles in August Wilson's
"The Piano Lesson," airing Sunday night at 9 on CBS. Alfre Woodard
plays his sister, Berbiece Charles, and Zelda Harris is cast as her
daughter, Maretha.
WARNER BROS.
``Family Matters'' deals with guns and violence in schools on ABC at
8 p.m. Friday.
by CNB