Hello 'Irene!' Performance Network's 15th season kicks off in a big way on Saturday with the world premiere of University faculty member Ari Roth's latest play, "Goodnight Irene." The show stars Broadway actor Peter Birkenhead, previously of -Angels in America," and will run through September 29. Showtimes are Wednesday to Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Student tickets are $9. Call 663-0681 for more information. >0 ili Friday September 6,1996 Pumpkins smash competition at MTVs' Van Halen, Morissette highlight annual Video Music Awards show By Aaron Ronnie Daily Arts Writer Dennis Miller hosted Wednesday's MTV Video Music Awards at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, and, as usual, the show was a mixed bag. On the plus side, some deserving musicians actually won a few awards, unlike the (slightly) more bland and commercial Grammy. There were a couple of decent live performances, and some interesting and unusual presentations of those little moon-men trophies. On the other hand, as with most MTV programming, there REVIEW MTV Video Music Awards Sept. 4, 1996 were hours of intolerable crap that one had to sit through before something good occurred. The Smashing Pumpkins, the big win- ners of the night, commenced the show by playing their current hit, "Tonight, Tonight." Although lead guitarist and singer Billy Corgan's vocals were slight- ly off-key, he and his band had the bene- fit of a full orchestra behind them assist- ing with the song's beautiful string arrangements. The Smashing Pumpkins' temporary drumming recruit, on loan from the band Filter, substituted nicely for ex-Pumpkin stickman Jimmy Chamberlain, who was fired this sum- mer for being a heroin junkie, the latest in a series of addictions that greatly hin- dered his performance in the band. The Foo Fighters took home the night's first award for Best Group Video for their Mentos spoof "Big Me." Lead singer Dave Grohl politely asked his fans not to throw the candy at the band at their shows, as I guess a handful of overzeal- ous ones have been inspired by the video, which parodies a few of the unorthodox commercials for the candy. This victory was a little bit of an upset, as the Fugees were also nominated in the same category for their No. I hit remake of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly." The Best New Artist in a Video went to Alanis Morissette for "Ironic." Now maybe it's just me, but wasn't Alanis known as Canada's Tiffany or Debbie Gibson a while back, meaning she's not new at all? After listening to presenter Rosie O'Donnell's Roseanne-like singing of the nominees' songs, howev- er, Alanis' voice actually sounded OK. The next live act was the Fugees, who played a medley of their hit singles before they busted into "Ready or Not." They were joined on stage by Nas, who dueted with Lauryn Hill of the Fugees for his song, "If I Ruled The World." Probably the hottest group of the sum- mer, the Fugees got arguably the biggest pop of the night from the audi- ence, especially when guitarist Wyclef played his instrument with his teeth a la Jimi Hendrix. Before handing out the award for Best Dance Video to Coolio, for "1,2,3,4 (Sumpin' New)," presenter Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers began stripping his clothes off. The camera shot then faded away from the half-naked bassist, The winners: Best Video of the Year: Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight, Tonight." Best Group Video: Foo Fighters, "Big MeA" Best New Artist Alanis Morissette. * BestDance Video: Coolio, "1,2,3,4 (Sumpin' New)" 8 Breakthrough Video: Smashing Pumpkins, '"Tonight, Tonight." * Best R&B Video: Fugees, "Killing Me Softly." Best Direction in a Video: Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight, Tonight." 9 Best Rap Video: Coolio, "Gangsta's Paradise." Best Hard Rock Video: Metallica, "Until it Sleeps." * Best Alternative Video: Smashing Pumpkins, "1979." WBest Male Video: Beck, "Where It's At." 0 Best Female Video: Alanis Morissette, "Ironic." N Viewer's Choice: Bush, "Glycerine." one of many acts censored by the MTV arbiters of all things moral and family- values-friendly. Following Flea's sponta- neous flashing, host Dennis Miller said "Flea" is a misnomer. After the Smashing Pumpkins won again for "Tonight, Tonight," this time for Breakthrough Video,. Metallica roared onto the stage for a faithful ren- dition of their current single, "Until It Sleeps." Although they possess a pow- erful stage presence, their new, more '90s look is less convincing than when they used to whip their manes of hair around at warp speed. The middle part of the show was quite boring. The Fugees' Best R&B Video victory was a no-brainer for "Killing Me Softly." LL Cool J's danc- ing to "Doin' It" with his tightly clad female co-singer was pretty racy, yet somehow quite lame. Best direction went to Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for Smashing Pumpkins' "Tonight, Tonight." A relatively moving performance of Neil Young singing "Needle and the Damage Done" seemed quite out of place, even though its intent - to shed light on the serious heroin problems of many of today's rock stars - was commendable. Coolio garnered a trophy for Best Rap Video for "Gangsta's Paradise." Hootie and the Blowfish gave it their best shot live, but they still sounded pretty poor (OK, I must be honest: I switched to watch the Andre Agassi / Thomas Muster U.S. Open quarterfinal for part of Hootie, so it is possible that they could have rocked out for those few minutes, but as John McEnroe would say, "Are you KIDDING me?!"). Why Snoop Doggy Dogg and 2Pac handed out the Best Hard Rock Video to Metallica for "Until It Sleeps" is beyond me, but it was quite funny seeing drum- mer Lars Ulrich give 2Pac a semi-hug and whisper sweet nothings in his ear. Breaking out of their infinite sadness, Smashing Pumpkins take home another award during Wednesday's show. "AP IPHOTO i~~ Following this awkward moment came the stunning live musicianship of Alanis Morissette and Bush (Oh, wait, I once again missed part of the action to actual- ly see some quality tennis. My apologies to you, the reader, for not giving you a full, "1 10%" effort during the three hours of my life that MTV stole). The Pumpkins cleaned house once again, this time for Best Alternative Video for "1979." Then came a mediocre version of a mediocre song, "Salvation," by the Cranberries. Lead singer Dolores O'Riordan must be complemented, however, for her efforts to grow out an impressive, Albert White-like domed hairdo. Bush miracu- lously won the Viewers' Choice award for "Glycerine," beating out most of the aforementioned winners of other cate- gories. During their acceptance speech, one of the non-Gavin members of the band said, "See you next year." Yeah, I know, I was laughing too. Sorry, no return invitation to you lads. "Trainspotting"'s Ewan MacGregor and Ewen Bremner introduced Oasis, who looked like they didn't want to be there at all. Lead singer Liam Gallagher sounded quite whiny and was massive- ly out of tune. After doing a pretty weak rendition of "Champagne Supernova," I questioned why they just didn't let Liam's consistently "on" brother Noel sing "Don't Look Back in Anger," Oasis' more current song. Regardless, an openly pissed-off Liam had his inde- cipherable Manchester-speak censored by the MTV police, and he kicked over a beer after the song ended, prompting Dennis Miller to poke fun at him. The best moment of the night was Van Halen's standing on stage with David Lee Roth back in the saddle, the way it was when the band meant something over a decade ago. He made a funny (and censored) comment about how the last time he was at the awards, people said, "I "-'a want my MTV" He said now people talk about "blowing each others' heads off," obviously taking a cut at gangsta rap's recent popularity. Anyway, they handed out the Best Male Video to a worthy Beck, whose hilarious "Where It's At" video includes country music fans line- dancing to his chorus of "two turntables and a microphone." Alanis Morissette then received another award, this time for Best Female Video. This preceded Bone choreography for "The Crossmids," which included waves of smoke.ahd a horse-drawn carriage. Finally, aft the Smashing Pumpkins won theirlast award, Best Video for "T ht, Tonight," the show terminateIvith Kiss playing "Rock & Roll All ht" under the Brooklyn Bridge. e: was rather energetic, it really wqgigst bunch of fattening men in their 4||ith ridiculous face paint on trying -sal- vage something from their past.n Much like MTV| Thugs-N-Harmony's elaborate stage Alanis did not go down In this the-a-tuhl AP PHOTC SUNDAY GALLUP SEPT.15 PARK MACEO PARKER At the top of this week's Billboard charts: SINGLES Copyright 1996, Billboard-Soundscan Inc.-Broadcast Data Systems. 1. "Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)," Los Del Rio (RCA) (Platinum) 2. "I Love You Always Forever," Donna Lewis (Atlantic) (Gold) 3. "Twisted," Keith Sweat (Elektra) (Gold) 4. "Loungin," LL Cool J (Def Jam) (Platinum) 5. "Change the World," Eric Clapton (Reprise) ALBUMS Copyright 1996, Billboard-Soundscan Inc. 1. "No Code," Pearl Jam (Epic) 2. "Atliens," Outkast (LaFace) 3. "Falling Into You," Celine Dion (650 Music) (Platinum) 4. "Jagged Little Pill," Alanis Morissette (Maverick-Reprise) (Platinum) 5. "Tragic Kingdom," No Doubt (Trauma) (Platinum) -MI= --- U - ii Read Weekend, etc. Magazine every Thur&y. I - .. Us he ............. Tb,,., i Ir i rnre.i+ i ^f RAielnirr-nr-, I I ti