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MULE BONE. There's historical curiosity, at least, in this never-before- produce d 1930 script by Harlem literati Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, now in previews on Broadway, with music by Taj Mahal and a stellar cast, including Frances Foster, Arthur French and Theresa Merritt. Scholars judge the comedy, set in Florida, to be a landmark of black-American culture.
MOVIES
MR. AND MRS. BRIDGE. A wonderful movie from Evan S. Connell's brace of anecdotal novels about buttoned-up banker Walter Bridge and his dithery wife | India, brought to full and funny life by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Poignant and deftly satirical, director James Ivory's mood piece raises observation to an art form.
ALICE. Woody Allen goes whimsical in this contemporary fairy tale about a Manhattan woman (Mia Farrow) who dares to fly from her troubles toward her dreams. William Hurt and Alec Baldwin are among the men who hold her down -- or help her soar.
ETCETERA
LISETTE MODEL, International Center of Photography, New York. To Model, the human form was a landscape and the human race was something both gamy and unearthly -- a zoo full of mammals in derby hats and polka-dot dresses. Through March 24.
ORPHEUS UND EURYDIKE. Berlin's adventurous Komische Oper makes its U.S. debut at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a radical updating of Gluck's masterwork. Orpheus is now a pop singer and the underworld he must traverse a lunatic asylum. Feb. 11-17.
COPPELIA. American Ballet Theater's only major new effort, with its irresistible Delibes score, moves to Chicago. Tony Straiges, who made the wizardly sets for Sunday in the Park with George, designed the production. Feb. 8-10.
VINTAGE VIDEOS
LEONARD MALTIN'S MOVIE MEMORIES (RCA/BMG Video; $16.98 each). Something different. Not the usual clips of dear departed superstars and great moments from Hollywood classics. These are collections of "soundies": pre-MTV shorts from the '40s, made to be shown on a type of coin-operated movie jukebox and featuring . . ., well, not to put too fine a point on it, some of the giants of American music, jazz department. Vol. I, The 1940's Music Machine, boasts the likes of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington in performance. Vol. II, Singing Stars of the Swing Era, features rare film glimpses of the supernal June Christy and Anita O'Day, as well as Hoagy Carmichael's incomparable rendering of Lazy Bones. Vol. III chronicles Big Band Swing, including Count Basie's Air Mail Special. Vol. IV covers Harlem Highlights, featuring Rosetta Tharpe and Lucky Millinder doing a steamy version of Four or Five Times, which could have been the Justify My Love of its day. Gone. Real gone.