Underachieving ‘Honors’ Needs to Rethink Approach

They say the TV variety show is dead.

In truth, it surfaces once a year, in late December, in the form of the Kennedy Center Honors show.

The two-hour “The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts” might not feature any sequined acrobats or puppeteers, but it tends to deliver an impressively wide assortment of acts.

Where else, in our niche-ridden day, could Edward Albee share a spotlight and an admiring audience with Johnny Cash? Or Pete Seeger get more or less equal billing with Aretha Franklin?

Over the years the show has produced some truly memorable moments, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s appearance to personally honor Harry Belafonte in 1989, and the sight of Bob Dylan in formal wear two years ago.

Still, for all the good intentions of the honors, and the ring of authenticity the ceremony frequently has had, there’s something strangely underachieving about them.

The main problem with the honors, in recent years, at least, is that they’ve been trying too hard to be a workable network TV product and not hard enough to be a meaningful measure of lifetime achievement in the arts.

Increasingly, each annual group of five inductees appears to be achingly balanced in terms of race, generation, art form and general star power.

Those are good TV criteria; they’re not very good artistic criteria.

How, for example, can we explain the 1997 selection of Jessye Norman, the opera diva who at the time was just 51, and who is still working and, indeed, in her prime?

It felt for all the world that a black woman was needed to balance the photo shoot, and Norman--certainly a credible potential candidate down the road--was hurriedly moved up from the waiting list. This year, Stevie Wonder, at 49, raises similar questions, although his childhood start and multidimensional talents perhaps do argue for early admission.

By contrast, how are we supposed to feel about Victor Borge, finally a recipient this year at age 93? Did the committee feel, as it went about its work over the past decade or two, that the man just needed a little more seasoning to solidify his standing in the business?

And although I like to see Lauren Bacall turn up in a late-night movie as much as the next man, I can hardly endorse her selection two years ago. Mostly she seemed to simply be a face (or a voice, thanks to her cat food commercials) that everybody sort of knows, and therefore acceptable to TV.

TV looms over the future of the awards, worrisomely. I can almost hear some 32-year-old pointy-loafered buckaroo at CBS poring over the overnight Nielsen numbers and then pounding out an interoffice memo: “The Kennedy Center thing just isn’t working for us anymore,” the memo will say. “Maybe if we got Jennifer Aniston as emcee. Or better, if she could be one of the recipients next year.”

The point is that the awards should forget about making acceptable network TV and concentrate exclusively on being an award of real stature and meaning. And to do that, the selectors must be prepared to make increasingly tough choices, because most of the truly shoo-in, iconic figures (Leonard Bernstein, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Marian Anderson, Aaron Copland) already are enshrined, and we don’t seem to be producing many more of them.

As it happens, though, there are some very credible candidates.

Some of them might be marginal by the ratings standards of TV, but these people are due, and in some cases overdue. For instance:

* Clarinetist Artie Shaw is 90.

* Singer Peggy Lee is 80.

* Composer Elliott Carter is 92.

* Guitarist Chet Atkins is 76.

* Comedian Milton Berle is 91.

* Pianist Oscar Peterson is 74 and not well.

* Comedian and actor Richard Pryor is 60 and not well.

Others worthies on the short list: Sid Caesar, Steve Allen, Marlon Brando (if he has been asked and turned it down--not a long shot--ask him again), Sonny Rollins, Woody Allen (moral turpitude, as in other award shows, should not be a disqualifying factor), Elizabeth Taylor, Gunther Schuller, Brian Wilson, Shirley MacLaine, Fred Rogers, Angela Lansbury, Twyla Tharp, Loretta Lynn, Jerry Lewis, Mike Nichols, Julie Andrews, Dave Brubeck, Kitty Wells.

In addition, there’s another, mostly younger group waiting in the wings:

Bernadette Peters; Yo-Yo Ma; Paul Simon; Bonnie Raitt; Joni Mitchell; Meryl Streep; Dustin Hoffman; Alan Alda; Merle Haggard; Joan Baez; Mikhail Baryshnikov; Michael Tilson Thomas; Carole King; Steve Martin; Peter, Paul and Mary; Kathleen Battle; Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach); Judy Collins; Cy Coleman; John Adams; Gene Hackman; Bruce Springsteen.

The exact recipe for each year always will be tricky, particularly because the rules are that the recipients have to be able physically to show up in person to collect.

Maybe, in that regard, a veterans committee, similar to the one now used for the Baseball Hall of Fame, could be impaneled to name a few posthumous winners each year. That way, sad oversights (such as Mel Torme, who died this past year) could be rectified. But whatever the particulars, in these times of countless contrived, synthetic TV award shows, the Kennedy Center Honors should make a conscious point of not being just another of them. Even if that means--as it might--ultimately getting booted off TV altogether.

There are some very credible candidates available. Some of them might be marginal by the ratings standards of TV, but these people are due, and in some cases overdue.

* “The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts” will be broadcast tonight at 9 on CBS.