Awards Broadcast Was Anything but Tony

Yikes! What demonic force has taken control of the Tonys, my favorite awards show (“ ‘Contact,’ ‘Copenhagen’ Big Winners at Tonys,” June 5)? These awards used to be in good taste, a real class act! Now we have to endure Rosie O’Donnell screeching the opening number, a shame with all the musical talent on Broadway. Silly me, I know TV is all about ratings and not good taste!

And though I adore Nathan Lane, why did he constantly make snide remarks about so many of the actors presenting awards as well as Hillary Clinton, who may be an actress but wasn’t at the ceremony? Bad, bad thing. And, as if all this wasn’t bad enough, they then trot out Kathie Lee Gifford to present the best actor award. What were they thinking? Did you see Gabriel Byrne’s expression when Gifford read his name? His eyes said it all!

OK, just one more thing before I put on a wonderful Rodgers & Hammerstein album and sink into oblivion: Rosie, was it really necessary to raise the gun issue? “Annie Get Your Gun” was nominated last year!

AUDREY J. LOCKWOOD

Riverside

I seem to remember back in 1997, when Rosie O’Donnell first began hosting the Antoinette Perry Awards, a great deal of noise was made about her reported stipulation that this steadily devalued telecast be returned to its former theater-celebrating, classily entertaining status. Furthermore, it seems like the whole purpose of the extra hour on PBS was to eliminate rushed acceptance speeches, and give the whole thing style and prestige.

How then to explain Sunday night’s veritable cheese-fest? It began on PBS with Nathan Lane’s first lame joke and continued relentlessly throughout the proceedings, right up to Rosie’s final lame joke. The scary orchestra was more present and intrusive than ever, and the constant non-sequiturial and self-delighting stream of patter was the biggest time-consumer of the night.

The numbers were great, the acceptance speeches were largely sincere and spontaneous (with Michael Blakemore’s back-to-back director speeches astonishing), and the energy was there. But the elimination of merely the truly embarrassing drivel that Lane and Kristin Chenoweth were saddled with would have permitted the on-air inclusion of Eileen Heckart’s lifetime achievement honors and/or Barry Humphries’ rare out-of-Dame-Edna-drag acceptance of his special award; the omission of these events from the telecast seems criminal at best.

The kicker here is that O’Donnell was co-executive producer and therefore presumably at least somewhat involved with the thing. Nielsen reports indicate a 7% drop in viewership from last year, and, given the lack of taste on display, it’s hardly surprising.

DAVID C. NICHOLS

Los Angeles