The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 165

Academic culture wars, plus Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Drabble, Page N13. In the Movie Jay Can' looks forward to this year's Boston Film Festival, plus a complete schedule, N7. Personals N17 Lifestyles N19 Hobbies N20 0 THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE AUGUST 31, 1997 I IHUgl I Ulll lllll.n if I it It'' t4 itr v-' inimfflri mi hi i i iirtif MiirtaaatiaimilwM.A rirn-Tirm -fir ivn mincmniiniitfii mm i inrrirrininm iliif il nll -RvT JfL- -U I TT i rfCV ri jTt ft 7 .,1 "II new shows i Staving off cable's advance, the networks shift from reruns to recycling li 4 By FVederic M. Biddle GLOBE STAFF i William Wainwright's "Never Green Tree." Answering the SOS for public art all's likeliest hit is no secret: "Veronica's Closet," starring Kirstie Alley of fame as the newly divorced proprietor of a lingerie catalog company. Yawn: For the past two new seasons, Madison Avenue has successfully predicted the same fate for two other sitcoms starring single women, also in Tongue-in-cheek ads are more exciting than new shows because, like "Veronica's Closet," the bulk of the shows on the new schedule are so derivative of past seasons.

Continuing a trend begun in earnest last year, "Family Matters," "Step by Step," and "Clueless" will jump networks. If you like "2020" or "Dateline NBC," get ready for one more edition of each. Add CBS's Wednesday-night "Bryant Gumbel," and the number of prime-time news hours nearly doubles, to nine. "The more of them they can put on the air, the less the networks have to spend on original programming," which is costlier, says Chris Nagle, a vice president of commercial-time buyer DeWitt Media, in New York. As always, ratings and money are guiding newsmag mania and the other scheduling TyPageN4 By Christine Temin GLOBK STAFF NBC's Thursday 9:30 time slot In the summer, even TV's crystal ball shows reruns.

Instead of "Veronica's Closet" or any of the 42 other shows debuting on six broadcast networks, the industry's current buzz concerns ABC's ads proclaiming that "TV Is Good." -t: 15 I he title of William Wain-I writrht's "Liehts at the End of the Tunnel" is ironic, given its fate. The mylar and aluminum mobile that once shimmered under the sky-lights at the Porter Square subway stop in Cambridge was removed four years ago 1 "95 Inside: With offerings like Ken Burns's "Lewis and Clark" (right), PBS is back doing what it does best -again. PAGE N5 because of minor mechanical problems, including a lead weight that dropped off. Worried that another might fall on someone's head, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which owns the piece, consigned it to storage. The "Lights" haven't seen the light of day since 1993.

Wainwright's "Never Green Tree" in Cambridge's Lechmere Canal Park is another mylar mobile that stopped shim-ART, Page N6 6 'V, 5 1t 4E. 1 .1 5 ii IT'S ALL IN 'THE GAME' With an eye to authenticity, the Huntington restores a neglected French comedy By M. R. Montgomeiy GLOBE STAFF I )Z iff he Huntington Theatre, al- mm- l'arte tradition. A man who moved easily within the circles of the early nlighten-? ment in Paris, Marivaux is an alternative" to, not a successor to, the intricacy and -subtlety of Moliere.

"It was a period in France when thinkers were beginning to question the old order of things," Wadsworth explained. "It is the principle of rational thought applied to the institutions of so--j ciety." Perhaps to separate clearly what he FARCE, Page Marivaux's "Game." Saves time. Brought to Boston from the McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J., by director (and translator) Stephen Wads-worth, Marivaux's "Game" has very little in common with the staple repertory of the Comedie Francais: Moliere, more Moliere, and some more Moliere. For one thing, Marivaux's characters are intelligent, rational human beings, even though they come on stage disguised as stock characters of the Italian stage, characters right out of the commedia del- I ready known in Boston for its successes with English Restor-IJ, ation plays, will cross the English Channel next week and present a revival of a 1730 French comedy: "The Game of Love and Chance" by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Mari-vaux. Be cool and say you're going to r--s-ir 1 Margaret Welsh and Francesca Faridany In Marivaux's "The Game of Love and historically informed performance..