The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 201

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1.1 1 a A' USRYL STRZSP: Plays the role of Rachel in V. 1 Via i i i i Meryl Streep keeps pushing perfection By Scott Calrt Staff Writer i DAVE WINKStaff I NEW YORK Meryl Streep is J-jn the backlash stage of her career, j'. She has been in movies less than a decade and is already a legend. She seems incapable of making a mis-J. take, and some people find her perfection irritating.

They are tired of praising her to the skies, and, no J- matter how wonderful she may be in a new movie, people are reluc-l tant to admit it. J. She might be better off giving an excruciating performance in a really wretched film. In that way, detractors could vent their spleen and then be ready to hail her on the occasion of a comeback in her next picture. But Miss Streep won't lower her standards intentionally.

With or without accent, she is working on an j. extraordinarily lofty plateau. If the public can't handle the level of her artistry, that's not Miss Streep's I fault Duu mm At 5, music channel sings videos1 praises, but makes changes pleased that Geraldine won," Miss Streep says, looking rosy-cheeked, freckled and happy in a lace-bedecked granny-type dress that conceals her figure, still ample from her recent pregnancy. At the time of the Academy Awards ceremony, because she was expectant, she had a defeatist atti-. tude toward her was glad not to win.

My rear end was about this big," she says, holding her hands four feet apart. "I could see myself clambering up the steps, hugely pregnant. Enough already. It seems like every time I've been nominated, I've been hugely pregnant I can't help it I don't schedule my Tife around these awards. I'd give anything not to have to find something big enough, to wear." Miss Streep was' also pregnant while making "Heartburn," her new moyie, which opened.

Friday, and in some scenes was made up to look conspicuously pregnant in her role as Rachel, a writer trying to cope with her husband's infidelity. In several scenes, Miss Streep looks as if she is anticipating quintuplets. "I was horrified when I saw the rushes." She laughs. Miss Streep laughs a lot- She's at the age 37 and position in life in which she might be forgiven for putting on airs, but she has an impish sense of humor and a down-to-earth grip on reality and resolutely refuses to become a grande dame. She did not socialize much with "Heartburn" co-workers, but this was because of personal discomfort Between scenes, she recalls, "I just ran into my trailer and By Keith Thomas Staff Writer Horn and his techno-pop band the Buggies predicted what video would bring to the world in the first clip to air on MTV, "Video Killed the Radio Star." "Video killed the radio starVideo killed the radio starla my mind and in my car We can't rewind, we've gone too The Buggies were way off base.

Video didn't kill the radio star. Instead, It gave rock 'n' rollers, country crooners, soul singers and pop prima donnas a whole new. solar system to explore and exploit. These one-time cheap promotional tools videos go as far back as the birth of rock 'n roll became massive marketing monsters. "Today, it's just taken for granted that there's a video for a song," said Bob Merlis, a record executive with Warner Bros.

Records. "Videos are part of the whole marketing March, she sat emptyhanded in the Academy Awards audience while of Africa" walked off with seven Oscars, including best I picture. Practically everyone associ-, ated with the picture got a prize except Miss Streep, whose performance as Karen Blixen held the movie together. Yet Geraldine Page won the best-actress Oscar for "The Trip to Bountiful." Miss Page's victory was hot unexpected. There was a feeling that Miss Streep ought to be satis- David Bowie once bellowed, "ch-ch-ch-changes." "MTV definitely isn't in any trouble, by no means," said Les Garland, MTV senior vice president for music programming.

"Our growth over the last few years has been incredible. Just think about it, five years ago, we started out in about two million homes; Now we're In close to 30 million." "We opened the door for a new innovative way of expressing music in this country," Garland said. "Sure, it's hard being a front-runner. But I'd much rather be a frontrunner than a chaser." Today, the music video frontrunner must contend with industrywide saturation, proven competitors, the loss of founding "veejays," artists and record companies who are reevaluating the need for videos, declining ratings and perhaps most important the loss of novelty and innocence. It was a scant five years ago that Trevor.

Van Halen and Journey didn't bother to send new clips. Nina Blackwood and Jackson, two of the original "video jockeys," jumped ship. Ratings are slipping. In other words: Happy fifth anniversary MTV. It was five years ago Aug.l, 1981 -that the 24-hour music channel first attacked the airwaves, a new phenomenon that spawned a variety of imitators, and launched the music video revolution.

In the beginning, the spaceman logo soared as the piercing battle cry of a generation raised on the tube became "I Want My Emmmmmm Teeeee Veeee!" But that was then. At the ripe old age of five, MTV is a venerable veteran facing, a vast variety of, as fled because she already has two1 Oscars, and Miss Page had sentiment working in her behalf because she had lost on seven previous See MTV 2J See STREEP 7J "I was so pleased honestly Miss Fairchild misses digs for 'Diamonds' Linda 4 Sherbertv 1 AIDS theme is I challenge to i dramatists i i 1 a. Urn-flu'' -w 4 V'' 1 )' By Paula Crouch StofiWrlttf When Morgan Fairchild opted for a four-city tour of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" this summer, she turned down not only a role In the sequel to the television mini-series "Sins" but also a chance to Join Don Johannsen'i paleontology excavations In Tanzania. Missing the digs was perhaps the greatest disappointment for the actress best known for her TV roles as spoiled rich-bitch Constance Cap lyle In "Flamingo Road" and as a successful lawyer In "Falcon Crest" Somehow, It's hard to Imagine the tiny blue-eyed blonde with the manicured pink nails down In the dirt In Tanzania. "People think I'm nuts," she says, during a break from rehearsals for the Theater of the Stars pro-' ductlon, which opens Tuesday.

But the fossil buff Is serious. She made a television commercial for a dinosaur exhibit at Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, and when she vacationed In London recently, she spent a rainy Sunday afternoon at the British Museum to see the Rosetta stone. She says she might just surprise I30RQ AH PAinCHSLDi Starrino In 'Gentlemen Prefer j. In 'As Is' on Showtime tonight at 9. n- AIDS is making Its presence felt not only In hospitals but also In live theaters.

The as-yet-incurable disease is spawning a new genre of dramatic literature in America: plays dealing with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Atlanta it on the cutting edge of this creative trend. Three stage shows written by Atlantans are being produced this two of them locally: Rebecca Ranson's "Warren," a true story of a young man dying of AIDS, opens Wednesday at the Performance Gallery. Bill Bagwell's "Camp," a futuristic play about detention camps for people with AIDS, premieres Aug. 20 at the Alliance Studio Theatre.

Kent Whipple's work-in-progress, "Survivors, a one-man show he wrote about an Atlanta newcomer who contracts AIDS, opens Aug. 12 at a theater In Lexington, N.Y, Hadary, a star of the Broadway show, co-stars onscreen with Robert Carradine and Colleen Dewhurst log It, would be very similar to things I've already done. I'm fist trying to do things that are different It's a chance to get back on Jhe stage." That last stage appearance was in a summer stock production of "Goodbye, Charlie" with James Far-entlno two years ago. In 1963, she people In a lot of roles they would never expect her to play In life as well as on stage and screen. That's one reason she decided not to Jo to Monte Carlo with her friend oan Collins for another glamorous TV credit The role of Lorelei Lee first played in 1949 by Carol Charming on Broadway, then by Marilyn Monroe In the 1952 movie "is such a different character, whereas the one In 'Sins II or whatever they're call- Also, Atlantans can now see the two AIDS plays that were major productions last year in New York Larry Kramer! "The Normal Heart," which made its local premiere last month at Neighborhood Playhouse In Decatur, reopens Aug.

21 at the Performance Gallery. William Hoffman's "As Is," which was an award-winning play, on Broadway, has been made Into a pay-cable television movie debuting tonight at 9 on Showtime. Jonathan "Warren" had Us world premiere at Atlanta's Seven Stages the-, ater nearly two years ago, making it one of the country's first plays about AIDS. Rebecca Ranson's See ISORQAN See 6HERSERT 4J rtrw 'mm.