TV REVIEW : Seeing Madonna on the Tube Is Like Sitting in the Last Row

The real question Sunday night, when HBO presented Madonna l-i-v-e (though tape-delayed) from the French Riviera, wasn’t whether she could come across any better in a television concert than the numerous other powerful pop-rock attractions, including the Rolling Stones, whose impact has been sabotaged over the years by the small screen.

The challenge facing the Material Girl: Could she top her electric recent appearance on “The Arsenio Hall Show”? She virtually had the audience gasping as she unleashed one sexy, provocative comment after another, outpointing the show’s host like Mike Tyson on all those HBO fights before Buster Douglas.

Madonna came closest to that freewheeling tone Sunday when she moved away from the tight format of her “Blond Ambition” world tour for some straight talk.

She took advantage of the controversy over comedian Roseanne Barr’s recent national-anthem antics before a San Diego Padres baseball game to answer criticism that her own show had been too sexy--notably a masturbation sequence.

This was just one of several reasons that this R-rated concert couldn’t have made it on network TV. While eyebrow-raising to some viewers, Madonna’s show is no racier than Prince’s and, most certainly, tame by 2 Live Crew standards (see review of the 2 Live Crew video, F1).

“Speaking of grabbing crotches, Roseanne Barr, baby, thumbs up . . . ,” she said, adding a message she directed to viewers in America: “Get a . . . sense of humor, OK? Lighten up. Spend your time worrying about more important things like . . . whether Ivana Trump is going to take Donald for everything he has . . . or better yet, how many girls Warren Beatty has slept with. That’s an important subject.”

The only other time Madonna seemed to open up was at the end of the concert, when she hugged or shook hands with seemingly every cast and crew member as they celebrated the end of one of the most ambitious and appealing pop tours in years.

Otherwise, however, the two-hour affair was static in comparison with the live event.

Because “Blond Ambition” (with its emphasis on such themes as social liberation, sex/salvation and Hollywood glamour) more closely resembles a Broadway revue than a traditional pop concert, it seemed ideal for television.

When the action was tightly focused and when the music was at its brightest, things worked well. But Madonna’s show is designed to take advantage of the full stage. It seemed at times you were looking at it through a keyhole--no worse than sitting in the back row of an arena, but minus the compensating audience energy. While a live telecast added drama to the evening, Madonna would have been better served by simply taping one of the earlier stops on the tour. That way the HBO program could have benefited from editing and better shot selection.

From Arsenio Hall to “Dick Tracy” to the live show, this has been a remarkable year for Madonna. But the HBO special probably won’t finish any higher than fourth in her scrapbook.