Daily News from New York, New York • 253

29 a etertaiiiineimt 4 COD Guilds 5 is imm performances of -Shirley MacLaine, and Debra Winger, who tackle their roles with the gleeful enthusiasm of actors who are simply thrilled to have finally latched on to a witty, sensitive script MACLAINE IS the delectably dizzy Aurora Greenway. a proper Boston-born widow who has transformed herself into a typical Houston vamp, one who loves to boast that she has a Renoir in her ultra feminine boudoir. Like all true Southern belles, Aurora spends her lazy days surrounded by meek, adoring suitors who cling to the foolish hope that they might one day gain access to her luxurious bedroom. To Aurora's disgust, her only child, Emma (Winger), has ignored her advice and married an obvious loser (Jeff Daniels), a would-be English teacher who eventually proves Aurora right by becoming a hopeless philanderer. WHILE AURORA reacts to her 50th birthday by finally agreeing to have lunch with the astronaut (she dresses up like a '50s floozy for what has to be one of the most memorably funny first dates ever recorded for the camera), Emma tries to ease the pain of her marriage by having an affair with a grateful Des Moines banker (appealing-ly played by John Lithgow).

Emma, a sensible, dedicated mother By KATHLEEN CARROLL TERMS OF ENDEARMENT. Dabra Wlnoar, Shliiay MacLalna. Dlractad by Jimtl Brook. At tha Baronat, Coronat and Loawt Attor Plaza. Ronnlns tlma: a hours, minute.

Rated PO. It takes all of perhaps five minutes to fall in love with the leading characters in "Terms of Endearment" and, from that point on, the audience is just putty in the extremely capable hands of writer-director James L. Brooks. Here, at long last, is a juicy, utterly captivating movie that not only features wonderfully human characters, but actually dares to deal with the joys and frustrations of maintaining a mother-and-daughter relationship at a time when the average Hollywood movie is concerned mostly with over-' wrought computers. BROOKS HAS taken certain liberties with the original novel by Larry McMurtry.

He has tacked on a whole new character, a girl-crazy, drunken wreck of an astronaut, played by that veteran scene stealer, Jack Nicholson. Best of all, he has been able to reproduce McMurtry's quirky Texas brand of humor and to capture the buoyant spirit of the book. The characters may not be as sharply defined, but it doesn't spoil the fun, for one is completely carried away by the exuberant Debra Winger, left, and Shirley MacLaine In Terms of Endearment" 1 phant, shows once more that she is not only a deft comedian, but a splendid dramatic actress. The raspy-voiced Winger has so much natural vitality she seems to leap off the screen. She is both delightfully nutty and extremely moving as the saucy Emma.

Nicholson cheerfully exposes his potbelly, but it's his naughty-boy face, especially his lecherous grins, that provides some of the best laughs. "Terms of Endearment" is all the more endearing because of its fearless assertion that it is women who are the nurturing forces who keep the world safe for men. of three whose lack of self-esteem irritates the supremely confident Aurora, is either infuriated by her mother's tart criticisms or touched by her sudden vulnerability as they check up on each other over a period of years. THE MOVIE, which, after lots of breezy patter, abruptly changes into a heartrending tragedy, inevitably reduces the audience to tears as one of the characters faces death, but Brooks refuses to let things become overly sappy. MacLaine, looking positively triu i- 'Painting Churches -an unconvincing picture By DOUGLAS WATT PAINTINO CHURCHES.

Play by Tina Hswa. With 0rf H. Martin, EUxabath McOovarn, Marian Ssldas. Dlractad by Carol Rothman. Sat by Haidl Landaunan.

Costumat by Linda FKnar. Uahtlnt by Franca Aron-on. At I ha Lamb's Thaatar. treatment of both parents, as well as of Maggie's apparent opportunism. McGovern, by the way, gives an exceedingly good account of this role.

Carole Rothman has again staged the piece admirably in a handsome setting by Heidi Landesman, excellently lighted by Frances Aronson and effectively costumed by Linda Fisher. The work, astutely written, plays well enough, but there is also something pretentious, and chilling (in the easy laughs derived from the wacky pair), and unconvincing about this family affair. Tina Howe's "Painting Churches," which is a play about Churches, not churches, has come to Off Broadway (it opened last evening at the Lamb's) after a brief engagement Off Off Broadway last February. While I find much respect about it, I find it as 1 Marian Seldes. Elizabeth McGovern bothersome now as I did before.

With the exception of different performers in two of the three roles, this is essentially the same production seen earlier. Marian Seldes is again the dotty Fanny Church, but George N. Martin now plays Fanny's mentally enfeebled husband, Gardner, once a much-honored poet who picked up a couple of Pulitzers along the way, and Elizabeth McGovern has the role of their portraitist daughter, Margaret, who has come to visit and to paint them as they are about to move out of their Beacon Hill home to a more modest dwelling away from Boston. WE FIRST meet Fanny, alone on a settee in a mostly dismantled parlor, admiring a silly hat she's wearing by holding up a shiny silver serving tray she's plucked from a packing carton. At the same time, she's barking and cooing her husband's name.

She seems, especially as played by Seldes in broad strokes, a certifiable loony. But we are led to believe that she is simply putting up a gay front to cover her anguish over the helpless husband, one of whose books bears a flyleaf inscription from Robert Frost stating "You showed us the way." WHEN DAUGHTER Maggie, already a SoHo celebrity, arrives and settles into the dissolving household, it takes her some time to get the picture, the true picture, the one Fanny emptk" ly declares she should paint Gardner and Fanny, who have had much fun striking ridiculous poses as famous paintings, finally exit waltzing as a and George Martin In a scene from "Painting Churches" detail from Renoir's "Le Moulin de la the evening's nicest touch. What bothers me especially is the deranged behavior of the young woman's (she can't be much over 25) far-from-ancient parents. Especially her dad's. Gardner, with his flashes of memory that can recall poem after poem, is obviously the victim not of senility, but, as we have come to learn, Alzheimer's disease.

But any ailment other than an old man's absentminded-ness is not even suggested. AND A HALE-LOOKING Martin slips in and out of the part, behaving so casually and normally much of the time that his lapses, which include making paper airplanes out of pages of his latest manuscript seem fortuitous. In fact there almost seems to be something cruel about the author's Metropolitan Opera. La Traviata." Met Opera House, 8 Don McLean. Pop singer.

Carnegie Han, 8 New York Philharmonic. Avery Fisher Hall, 8 Fire and Ice. New animated film, opening. Area theaters Of Unknown Origin. New suspense thriller, opening.

Area theaters Return Engagement New documentary, opening. Embassy 72nd St Terms of Endearment New James Brooks film, opening. Coronet and Loews Astor Plaza theaters Wild Style. Movie, opening. Embassy 46th St Wlnsomo widow Cheryl Savltt plays the recently widowed Sonla in the Light Opera of Manhattan's production of Lehar's "The.

Merry Widow," which opens tonight at the Eastslde Playhouse. The operetta runs through Dec. and resumes Dec. 31. through Jan.

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