Newsday from New York, New York • 126

ENTER A I AT THE THEATER An Adriana Who and Twirls "I just wasn't smart enough to do it sooner, she admits. Theater Exchange Its often said that theres viable new life in the nations regional theaters. Starting tonight, with the opening "Self Defense at the Joyce Theater on Eighth Avenue, New Yorkers will have the opportunity to for themselves without buying train or even a bus ticket. Following the production of Joe Ca-cacis play, which comes from the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, there will be three more events, all lumped under the ventures umbrella title of American Theater Exchange. July 7, the Berkeley Repertory Theaters production of Dickens "Hard Times, adapted for just four actors, opens at Theater Sophie Hayden plays Adriana And she was very good.

Her specialty was the ability to twirl four batons simultaneously, which is the baton worlds equivalent of the circus aerialisfs triple somersault. Along with the ever-present danger of cracked or broken teeth, Hayden lists "nosebleeds, black eyes and even a potential broken nose. In addition, theres always the possibility of losing control and twirling a fast-moving baton into the audience, a danger perhaps intensified by the Beaumonts three-quarter-round staging. "That hasnt happened yet, Hayden says "but it could, and if I did, Fd just yell to warn the people. Hayden, who stopped competing when she made it to the top of the baton-twirling tree in 1971, says it was worth the trouble and the time.

"Competing took me to Italy, Switzerland and South America. It also took her to Broadway. As Sophie Schwab, she brought her twirling expense to a small role in "Bamum, dominating the ac-' tion for a few brief, shining moments. As for the name change from Schwab to Hayden, it may owe something to the late actor, Sterling Hayden, and then again, the Planetarium might just have played a role in it. "I just always liked the name, the actress says.

Why did Sophie Schwab wait until shed appeared conspicuously on and off Broadway before becoming Sophie Hayden? 890, at 890 Broadway. Then Romu-Linneys Gl duction of the San Diego hosts, a pro- By Joseph Hurley THE LAST TIME a Lincoln Center stage played host to a production of "The Comedy of Errors, the occasion was the 1964 visit of Britains Royal Shakespeare Company to the New York State Theater. The heroine, Adriana, was extremely tall and as famous as she was beautiful. She was, in fact, Diana Rigg, playing alongside the Luciana of Julie Christie. But she couldnt juggle, twirl a baton or do cartwheels.

Those grievous omissions have been made up for in the new, Kar-amazoved version of the play by the casting of the dark, intense Sophie Hayden, 1971s world champion baton twirler. The Adriana at the Vivian Beaumont Theater spins a variety of batons, some of them behind her back, and juggles apace with the Flying Karamazov Brothers, all the while keeping up her end of Shakespeares giddy mistaken-identity caper. "The Karamazovs keep telling me to smile more, she says, "but every baton twirler leans to protect her teeth by keeping her lips dosed as much as possible. This and other tricks of the twirlers trade have been a part of Sophie Haydens life since she was 3 years old and still known as Sophie Schwab of North Java, N.Y., a little fanning town about 40 miles southeast of Buffalo. The origins of Haydens competitive baton-twirling career are to be found in the hopes and dreams of her mother, a farmers daughter whose greatest pleasure was appearing with her horse in local parades and celebrations.

Sophie, with a years intense practice behind her by the time she turned 4, soon enough joined her mother and that equine competitor in shows in and around North Java, a town the twirler characterizes as "two bars and a post office. By the time she was seven, she was in full-fledged competition, and subjecting herself to the sort of discipline that competitive swimmers and track-and-field participants take for granted. "You have to practice three hours a day, she says. "There are no two ways about it if you want to be good. Theater, opens Aug.

11 at 890. i at the Joyce, an adaptation of George Orwells "1984, a production of Philadelphias Wilma Theater, opens July 21. Change far OConnor Its a healthy sign when an established actor strides out for a decided change of pace. Thats what Kevin OConnor is doing just now, playing Harpagon in Molieres "The Miser. Its the actors first foray into the work of Frances greatest classic playwright.

The production is by a new company, the Grace Repertory Theater, located at Grace and St. Pauls Church at 123 W. 71st St. The next two weekends will see the final six performances, at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Call (212) 245-0533. BOOKS Some Sociable Lions and a Couple in Discord BOOK REVIEW MY PMDE AND JOY, by George Adamson. Simon and Schuster. 304 $19.95. NEWSDAY, TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1987 NY Part 119 but the assault is felt nonetheless.

It is not impossible that Georges excuses for her childish behavior are an unconscious attempt to emphasize rather than to minimize the faults of her character, paying her back (albeit post mortem for years and years of small humiliations. In any event, in good British tradition he remains consistently and courteously stiff-upper-lippish. It is in his relationship to the African bush, his home for nearly half a century, and especially to his lions that George Adamson is able to articulate hia amntiana. It all hagan with tim finnnua El and the Adamsons efforts to reeducate this human-reared cat so that she could survive in the wild. It then became Georges passion to try to introduce other "domesticated lions, which had led even more unnatural lives as zoo inmates, movie stars and European house pets, into the parks of central Kenya, where they would have to learn to fend for themselves.

He also hoped that a number of "his lions would maintain enough trusting contact with his camp that tourists could come there to observe them, thereby supporting the viability of national reserves. Although both Adamsons dedicated thf ir adult lives to the same aim, that of conservation of Africas dwindling wildlife, Joy very much disapproved of Georges approach, which she considered show biz. She went so far as to try to have his project disbanded by the director of national parks. It is at this point that even George loses patience with her. In the meantime, we have gotten to know the lions one by one (nearly 30 are released into the bush, where new generations are bora) and have become not only possessive but, when necessary, defensive about them.

From the safety of our armchairs, their multi-faceted characters complete with quirks have made of them fascinating, although awesome, friends. Their involvement with their people is more than a matter of affection; it is often empathetic to the point of telepathy. Adamsons message is not just the preservation of his beloved lions, which are not yet called endangered. His plea is to maintain what little is left of the precarious balance of the African ecosystem before it loses its equilibrium and topples. Elephants have been decimated, and rhinos nearly eliminated, by the bullets of greedy men; domestic animals have scarfed up the grasses and the browse on which wild creatures depend, and in the process they have caused erosion so that silt slides down the rivers to choke the reef More than just one mans autobiography, this book is a biography of the African bush which the king of its beasts becomes the symbol of all species in -their struggle against extinction, Katie Stevene write a column on wildlife for a newspaper in Belize.

i I vv -s-'. i i By Katie Stevens AT FIRST GLANCE, taking into consideration the lion on the cover and the fact that George Adamsons late wife was the well-known Joy Adamson of "Bom Free fame, "My Pride and Joy as a title seems little more than a harmless inability to resist a double entendre. However, it soon becomes dear that the lions do in fact take pride of place in Georges life and that oy is allowed into the title only because she fits in as part of the pun. Which, if your reading of the book includes inferring between the lines, is more than she deserves. The relationship between the two is presented in a Btrung-out series of dessicated statements rather than in living incidents at least until the crunch comes fairly late in the game.

They meet and marry, take a few safaris, and soon it is separate tents (never mind sleeping bags) and then separate camps. Finally it comes to a low-pitched battle, her animals (cheetahs and leopards) against his Gions). Her temper tantrums are only allowed to flare like fireworks in daylight in this account..