Short Takes

MUSIC

A Skinhead Takes Up the Torch

& FORGET, FOR A MOMENT, THE NOTORIETY of SINEAD O'CONNOR. Imagine that the truculent Irish skinhead is a timid thrush at the back of a noisy saloon, addressing with a quavering intimacy pop standards associated with Billie Holiday (Gloomy Sunday), Peggy Lee (Why Don't You Do Right?), Sarah Vaughan (Black Coffee), even Doris Day (Secret Love). And she's not bad. O'Connor can exasperate on her new album, Am I Not Your Girl? -- she wails this phrase 26 times in one song and closes the set with a dark harangue against the Roman Catholic clergy. But these assaults are familiar. The surprise is that her voice and attitude are true to the torchy material, notably a definitive Don't Cry for Me Argentina. As the publican might say, "Lady, you got the job."

MUSIC

Sir Andrew Seduces

NO CREEPING IN ON LITTLE CAT FEET FOR THE MUSIC OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER. This touring concert stomps into Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall for a two-week visit with a 52-piece orchestra, twice the size of the usual Broadway pit band. Early on, overamplification and pretension threaten to do in the evening. Ultimately, though, Sir Andrew's lush, melodic theater music seduces. From Jesus Christ Superstar to The Phantom of the Opera, all the hits are here. A virtuoso company of 14 makes even the most familiar songs seem fresh (Laurie Beechman's poignant Memory is a knockout), and star Michael Crawford (the original Phantom) performs with dazzling bravura.

THEATER

Fountains of Youth

FOR THOSE FRETFUL ABOUT THE SUBLIteracy of the MTV generation, a freshet of hope comes with the annual YOUNG PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL, which has drawn on thousands of writers 18 and younger and given the best an off-Broadway showcase. This year's cleverest premise comes from Aurorae Khoo. Her rap poem The P.C. (for politically correct) Laundromat substitutes for the melting pot the metaphor of the washing machine, where whites and colors fare best when separate. Joanna Norland's Mothers Have Nine Lives wryly contrasts the joys of playing mommy as a child with the discontents of the real thing. The deftest storyteller is Robert Levy, whose Mrs. Neuberger's Dead sends up young people finding themselves.

TELEVISION

State of The Union

POLITICS MAY BE IN VOGUE IN PRIME time, but inside-the-Beltway sitcoms like Hearts Afire and The Powers That Be look cheesy next to a really smart political film like HBO's RUNNING MATES. Ed Harris plays a slick U.S. Senator who needs a wife to boost his bid for the presidency. Diane Keaton is a children's book author who falls for him but becomes a liability when a past indiscretion surfaces. The two stars click as a romantic team; there are nice offbeat touches (Keaton's mentally unbalanced brother, played by Ed Begley Jr.); and the backstage political scenes ring surprisingly true. Despite a cozy, upbeat ending, this romantic drama displays more courage than most real- life candidates: it deals with the issues.

BOOKS

Mean Streets

MITCH GELMAN WAS AS GREEN AS CENtral Park when he became a police reporter for New York Newsday, an aggressive urban tabloid. In CRIME SCENE (Times Books; $21), he is honest enough to recall the highs he got from interviewing the perpetrators and victims of shoot-outs, rapes and drug deals. And he is frank enough to describe the many times his stomach seemed "gnarled in knots of guilt." At the age of 30 he was a burned-out case, and moved on to cover health and urban affairs for the same paper. New York City has yet to find a happy ending; the same cannot be said for Gelman. Sensibilities and prose style sharpened by his mean-street smarts, as evidenced by this evocative memoir, he went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.