Arts on TV: Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse, RSC's 'Hamlet'

“Great Performances” 9 p.m., Friday KOCE; 8 p.m., Tuesday KVCR: Tony Bennett: Duets II: Tony Bennett sings his greatest hits with contemporary artists. Performers include Amy Winehouse (in her last recording), Lady Gaga, Norah Jones, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood and Willie Nelson.

“Architect Robert A.M. Stern: Presence of the Past” 10:30 p.m., Friday KOCE: The architect and Yale dean bridges the divide between the modernists and the traditionalists.

“Joe Bonamassa Live From the Royal Albert Hall” 9:30 p.m., Saturday KOCE: The musician performs songs from “The Ballad of John Henry” in London; guest Eric Clapton.

“Great Performances” 1:30 p.m., Sunday KVCR: "Hamlet": The Royal Shakespeare Company presents a contemporary retelling of “Hamlet.”

“Exploring the Arts With Gloria Greer” 5:30 p.m., Sunday KVCR: Hohmann and Imago Galleries: The veteran journalist chats with local art experts in Palm Springs.

“Vine Talk” 6:30 p.m., Sunday KLCS: Weighing Washington Chardonnays: Jennifer Coolidge; music director Alan Gilbert, New York Philharmonic; chef Steven Raichlen.

“Smart Travels: Europe With Rudy Maxa” 6:30 p.m., Monday KVCR: Milan and Lake Como: Italy's gothic cathedral and Milan's Design Museum; exploring the Villa D'Este Hotel; alpine festival.

“Burt Wolf: Travels & Traditions” 10 p.m., Monday KVCR: "The Great Rivers of Europe: Cologne to Zell": A museum dedicated to mechanical musical instruments; Lorelei Rock; the city of Zell.

“Summer Sun Winter Moon” 2 a.m., Tuesday KVCR: A Blackfoot Indian poet and a composer collaborate on a symphony about the American Indian perspective of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

-- Compiled by Ed Stockly

 

Photo: Tony Bennett with Amy Winehouse. Credit: Kelsey Bennett / PBS

Theater review: 'Five Beauties' at the McCadden Place Theatre

  
Tennessee Williams' enduring masterworks understandably overshadow his knack for the short form, worthy miniatures appearing across the canon. The New American Theatre gratifyingly observes the Williams centenary with "Five Beauties," an airtight quintet of rarely performed one-acts.

First up: the recently discovered "Green Eyes," a Vietnam War-era study of a tormented soldier and his hormonal bride. Courtney Munch and Brendan Brandt are physically unfettered, palpably attuned combatants, directed by Mark Bringelson with coiled intensity. "The Lady of Larkspur Lotion" shifts to comic Southern Gothic, and Bjorn Johnson's staging lovingly highlights the fantasist title character (delicious Cameron Meyer), her grimly unconvinced landlady (wry Mona Lee Wylde), and a sodden fellow dreamer (rhapsodic John Copeland).

Before intermission comes "The Traveling Companion," which packs a wallop. As a neurotic gay writer navigates his aggressively macho escort's defenses, the exchanges feel as much like embedded memories as taut dramaturgy. Tom Groenwald makes a superb authorial proxy, Byron Field is an ideally posturing prey, and director Ron Klier maneuvers them to memorable effect.

Theater review: 'Kowalski' at Two Roads Theatre

Theatrical lore is at the well-intended heart of "Kowalski," Gregg Ostrin's ambitious rumination about Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando during the run-up to "A Streetcar Named Desire."

It's well-documented that Williams (Curt Bonnem) vacationed in Provincetown, Mass., in 1947, with longtime advocate Margo Jones (Alexa Hamilton) and partner Pancho Rodriquez (Les Brandt) in tow. Also verifiable is that director Elia Kazan sent 23-year-old Brando (Ignacio Serricchio) to meet Williams, staking him to bus fare, which the future Method icon spent on food, hitchhiking up the Cape with a girlfriend (Sasha Higgins, a discovery) and arriving three days late.

Playwright Ostrin turns this fabled scenario into a zinger-laden crowd-pleaser, with various plot shifts reflecting Brando's breakthrough role. Yet scholarly groundwork doesn't automatically equal dramatic truth. Ostrin's premise holds the potential for ambiguous sizzle and even surprise, but, under Rick Shaw's direction, this script could change names and references and play the same. Thus, a momentous occasion becomes an ineffably conventional dramedy.

The darkly handsome Serricchio, visually closer to Farley Granger or Alain Delon, deploys measured intensity and technique to approximate Brando's mannerisms, at least nominally. Bonnem's features and physicality more closely resemble Williams, yet his generic drawl and obviated beats amount to a standard-issue, Southern-lavender turn.

Hamilton and Brandt are competent actors saddled with extraneous, functional roles, and when the sparky Higgins turns up midway, her seriocomic spontaneity instantly exposes what's gone missing. "Kowalski" will be a hit with stage trivia buffs, some gay viewers and fans of the central combatants. Still, to parrot Blanche DuBois, I don't want realism, I want magic. Regrettably, there's little to be found here.

-- David C. Nichols

"Kowalski," Two Roads Theatre, 4348 Tujunga Ave., Studio City. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Sept. 4. $30. (818) 762-2282 or www.tworoadstheater.com. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

Photo: Ignacio Serricchio, left, and Curt Bonnem. Credit: Mamood-Vega Photography.