Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993 TAG: 9311240109
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: Tom Shales
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
She was starring in "The Girlie Show: Live Down Under," a two-hour concert from Sydney, Australia. HBO announced in advance that this would be a "one time only" telecast with no repeats ever. But actually, "one time only" may have turned out to be one time too many.
Madonna seems to have graduated from frisky, audacious scamp to tired old tease. Her attempts now to shock and titillate have become belabored self-parodies. "Live Down Under" was the big show that the whole world was not talking about the next morning.
"Viewer Discretion is Advised," noted a prefatory disclaimer from HBO. Why is viewer discretion always advised? Why doesn't anybody ever advise performer discretion? Then maybe Madonna would have refrained from some of the hokey simulated sex acts that took up much of her bombastic revue.
When she really sings and really dances, Madonna is still something of a wonder. And you can't blame her for wanting to show off the physique that she has spent months and years perfecting. Madonna on her worst day probably looks better than almost anybody else on their best day.
But doesn't this woman have any private fantasies? First came the ridiculous coffee-table porno book "Sex," with Madonna coupling, and tripling, and quadrupling, on page after panting page. In "The Girlie Show," she continues in this vein, being groped and fondled by virtually all of her close-cropped androgynous dancers through several long numbers.
"Erotic, erotic, put your hands all over my body," she sang as the show opened (Cole Porter, eat your heart out). This was right after a topless Asian woman slunk down a long pole wearing only a red-spangled G-string. And right before a performance of the old Peggy Lee hit "Fever" starring Madonna and two long-legged young men in black underpants.
She pawed them and pawed them and pawed them and listen, this kid can paw. When Madonna paws you, you stay pawed.
At the end of the number, Madonna and the two dancers descended into a ring of fire, symbolically going to hell. Much later she chanted, appropriately enough, "Gonna beat my drum, gonna ring my bell, and I don't give a damn, if I go to hell."
A great deal of attention was paid to Madonna's body as the evening wore on. She became the baloney in a sandwich a couple of times, first lodged between two men, later between two women. The Asian lady groped her extensively during an orgy sequence in which Madonna sang the rhetorical musical question, "What do I have to do to be respected?"
Is she kidding? How about, "grow up"?
One has to admit that Madonna and her troupe do work hard. Throughout the night their pelvises barely got a moment's rest. These people were a-thrashin' and a-twistin' and a-wigglin' and a-wallowin'. They'll all be way ahead of the game if writhing is ever made an Olympic event.
Madonna - aye, there's the rub.
Perhaps some find it commendable that Madonna's show undrapes men as well as women. Madonna is an equal opportunity undraper. Torsos, torsos, torsos! Buns, buns, buns! During the orgy sequence, it was difficult to tell who was doing what with whom. It was also difficult to care. The sad thing is, "Girlie Show" wasn't really shocking. It was just plain silly.
Madonna apologized at one point for the cameras on hand for the HBO telecast. "Every time I'm dripping with sweat and snot is flying out of my nose, the camera zooms in for a closeup," she complained. "That's kind of like a metaphor for life, right?" Actually, no.
Unlike most stripteases since stripping and teasing began, "Girlie Show" started out with everybody about seven-eighths naked and then, by the end of the show, the folks onstage were actually wearing clothes. And they were doing some real dancing, witty and rousing, and not just mock-orgasmic junk.
She does have talent, that Madonna. Maybe she's trying to hide it from the world. Obviously she ain't hiding much else.
Washington Post Writers Group
by CNB