It is a sad story, made even sadder, unfortunately, by an oppressive, almost funereal musical background that sometimes seems to change the tone of the accompanying words and pictures. Sally Field played the determined widow in "Places in the Heart; Jessica Lange was a similarly tough wife and mother in the more contemporary "Country" and Sissy Spacek also helped keep her farm family together in "The River" Vanessa Redgrave, one of the most controversial winners in Oscar history for her fiery anti-Zionist speech at the 1977 awards, was nominated for her role as a 19th-Century advocate of women's rights in "The Bostonians" based on Henry James' novel. The most impressive new works I reviewed this year were Donald Krieger's mesmerizing "Rocket" at the Powerhouse, and John Bishop's "Borderline" a compact and powerful one-act at the Skylight. Staged by Tom Moore, it will feature Kathy Bates and Ann Pitoniak, all of whom did it on Broadway. If you want to compare us to somebody, compare us to some real singers, like the Pointer Sisters or the Supremes" Another reason the Mary Jane Girls are sometimes downgraded is they are pictured as simply James' musical pawns.

He offers mostly serious advice, while the Poorman often punctuates his advice with off-the-wall jokes. "It has become almost a cultural Olympics, a competition to send the very best" said Michael Coutouzis, a foreign affairs adviser who, like most employees of the Culture Ministry (including Mercouri's husband, Jules Dassin, is devoting almost full time to the program. All its albums since "Ladies Night" have sold at least 500,000 copies and three have been million sellers. The teachers in our English department complain that students who are supposed to have 12 or 13 years of (daily) English are functionally illiterate They can neither read nor write So just think of what we're getting in the music department Total (musical) illiterates. "I really wanted to show that I could really be an actress and not a 'glamour puss' which is what we were called.

And he won't see most gowns and tuxes until today's rehearsal. "Besides" she added with a laugh, "it probably wouldn't have made any difference in those days Not all that many people knew who Sam was. Help save the goose" Griem's "golden egg" remark referred to the huge success of the festival as a tourist attraction This year's exhibition-and-tableaux event, July 9 to Aug. Johnson, "the Photography Department" at the College of Marin north of San Francisco, is visiting the San Diego area while on academic leave.

7, the orchestra opens its regular season at Symphony Hall with the world premiere of "Ceremonial for Orchestra" by Bernard Rands, composer in residence. Aside from a few serious-themed titles (like "Heartburn, the emphasis will be on high-concept popcorn pictures. The sporting Quarter Note Classic, which drew 4,000 participants last year, is primarily designed to expose thousands of people to the symphony who have never attended a orchestra performance before. A new demolition permit has been issued, but is "on hold" pending feedback from the property owner on issues the council has expressed concern over. There are reasons for this situation, not least of which is the short history of Jamaican art. "The first two volumes are about the exploits of men, the last is called 'The Winters of That Country' and the third deals with women emerging from the background.

The wife, Holly, is supremely organized; the newswoman, Sandy, helter-skelter and flaky. Performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p. m, Sundays, 7:30 p. m, with 2:30 p. m. This Old Globe production of Mastrosimone's latest play is something of a rarity: an import, brought in from the Seattle Repertory Theatre and presented in association with it as a replacement for the scrapped "Romance Language" Wisely, it is being performed in the Cassius Carter Centre Stage, where the raging war of words-attack and counterattack-has a better chance of pulling us into the verbal cross fire Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Paradoxically, that only makes the episodic nature of the piece feel repetitious and long Well, long it is-undeniably, at three hours And repetitious too.

But an ABC spokesman said Wednesday that the show might be moved to "Spenser's" former slot opposite the tough competition from "Miami Vice" on NBC and "Falcon Crest" on CBS. Valle called "City Hearts" Gary Blumsack, the theater's artistic co-director (with Patrick Pankhurst, had an interesting start with Valle. Do the sons feel bound by the limitations of the quartet format? "Not at all" Pepe said. This is the first time that the four artists-Alice Aycock, Richard Fleischner, Mary Miss and George Trakas, roughly contemporaries who began their mature work in the 1970s-have been united in one exhibition. As the film begins, Dorothy has returned from Oz only weeks before, and cannot sleep for thinking about it. They have also established a foundation to support contemporary art and converted one of the chateau's old buildings into an exhibition space as sleek and handsome as anything in Paris or New York (though, of course, a good deal more charming on the outside. Over the years, guest members of the group have included George Segal, Buddy Rich, Milton Berle and Steve Allen, among others"It's good-time music that should be played as hot and as enthusiastically as possible You have to put everything you have into it" Janis said.

It didn't take a famine to start the tradition of willing exiles, exiles as priests and teachers, a tradition then carried on by artists like Wilde and Joyce himself. There were, however, some grand moments when the audience seemed to come alive and responded enthusiastically just at the right time for the cameras to scan the Music Hall. "I really envision SDSU becoming a national center for the study of jazz music" Yeager said. He wanted to know if she was available to pose for calendar art. To co-write "Ninotchka" for Garbo, then last long enough to be in Jerry Weintraub's kitchen cabinet at UA, is to go the distance. The same critics who accuse the industry of being mindless and exploitative refuse to recognize a movie that tells it as it was.