On the Record

"All of Broadway is here tonight," said Producer Joseph Papp, and he was just about right. After eight years of high-stepping exuberance, Papp's A Chorus Line last week became the longest-running show in Broadway history, eclipsing the musical Grease. A spectacular 3,389th performance featured 332 past and present top-hatted cast members (out of a total 457) from all of the Broadway and other companies. Preparations took three months. Director-Choreographer Michael Bennett, 40, restaged the show for the anniversary, moving the various players in and out of their roles and gathering everyone for an untoppable 332-strutters-strong finale. Cost of the gala: $500,000, quite a bit for a one-night stand, but affordable considering that over the years more than 22 million fans have seen A Chorus Line, paying $260 million for the pleasure.

The champagne flowed to strains of Vivaldi. Waiters in white tie and tails ministered to elegant patrons seated in rich red velvet banquettes. Behind them, murals of buxom nudes tiptoed into postimpressionist waters. An evening at Maxim's, of course. But this was not Paris. It was, of all bourgeois things, Maxim's de Pekin, which opened last week in China's capital, one of several copies of the Parisian restaurant now owned by Designer Pierre Cardin, 61. Before East could meet West, 15 Chinese spent months learning the art and preparation of haute cuisine in Paris, and more than twelve tons of wine and other delectables were flown to the mainland. Said Cardin: "I am using capitalism to serve socialism." But the restaurant will have to rely heavily on foreigners living in Peking because citizens of the People's Republic are forbidden to go, except with special government permission.

As Robert Louis Stevenson saw him, James Durie, the Master of Ballantrae, dressed entirely in black and had the bearing "of one who was a fighter and accustomed to command." His brother Henry "had the essence of a gentleman, but... he fell short of the ornamental." What is more, the family was a bit hard-pressed for funds. Something has been lost in the translation. As elegantly portrayed by Michael York, 41, and Richard Thomas, 32, in a three-hour CBS-TV version to be aired next year, James and Henry seem to have been modeled less on the hardy Duries of 18th century Scotland than the court dandies of Louis XIV's Versailles. Hoot, laddies, can ye no swallow those simpers, at least?

--By Janice Castro

A.M. Rosenthal, editorial chief of the New York Times, on the fact that someone had filed his name as a presidential candidate with the Federal Election Commission: "Were it not for the fact that I am excluded by reason of my Canadian birth, it does not strike me as a bad idea. The country could search far and do worse. A constitutional amendment would solve the problem."

Dick Butler, supervisor of American League umpires: "If you took three words out of the English language, most players and umpires would be mute." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.