Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs

THEATER

THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD. How near in time, and how far in world view, is the village life portrayed in J.M. Synge's masterpiece about ignorant peasants and their perverse notions of heroism, all of it a sly satire on the yearning of oppressed colonies to break free. The finest Irish drama of the 20th century, it is discerningly performed by the Abbey Theater of Dublin, at Washington's Kennedy Center through Oct. 21, then in St. Louis, Tucson and Ann Arbor, Mich.

BUDDY. The London hit, based on the ordinary life and surefire songs of short- lived rock genius Buddy Holly, plays at San Francisco's Golden Gate Theater through Oct. 14, prior to Broadway, with an American, Paul Hipp, reprising his West End title role.

ENDANGERED SPECIES. In The Garden of Earthly Delights and subsequent pieces, Martha Clarke has proved herself the most original and visually imaginative director working the fertile border between dance and drama. Her new work, inspired by the environmental debate, debuts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Through Nov. 4.

ART

AN UNCERTAIN GRACE: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF SEBASTIAO SALGADO, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The first U.S. exhibition for the Brazilian-born Salgado, a onetime economist who took up photography to document life in developing nations. Whether in a Peruvian village, an open-pit gold mine in Brazil or a refugee camp in Ethiopia, Salgado sees not just hardship, though he sees a great deal of that, but also the immemorial underpinnings of life -- tradition, community and work -- that give suffering a meaning. Through Dec 2.

CHILDE HASSAM: AN ISLAND GARDEN REVISITED, National Museum of American Art, Washington. The islands are the Isles of Shoals, off the New Hampshire coast, and the garden was the notable cultivation of journalist-poet Celia Thaxter. Both are memorably captured here by Hassam (1859-1935), America's foremost impressionist. Through Jan. 6.

TELEVISION

NIXON (PBS, Oct. 15, 8 p.m. on most stations). A rich selection of old news clips, plus fresh comments from such former aides as John Ehrlichman and Charles Colson, make this three-hour American Experience documentary on the ex-President's life worth an evening.

VOICE OF THE PLANET (TBS, Oct. 15-19, 8:05 p.m. EDT). William Shatner plays an author who talks with the spirit of Earth (the voice of Faye Dunaway) about the planet's ecological problems. Ted Turner's environmental passion takes an odd mystical turn in this week-long series.

DANIELLE STEEL'S KALEIDOSCOPE; DANIELLE STEEL'S FINE THINGS (NBC, Oct. 15, 16). NBC's alternative to post-season baseball: a double dose of glossy trash.

* BOOKS

SPY SINKER by Len Deighton (HarperCollins; $21.95). The master plotter winds up his six-volume espionage saga about British agent Bernard Samson and his spying wife Fiona, whose defection to East Germany is finally explained.

PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE by Sidney Blumenthal (HarperCollins; $22.95); ROAD SHOW by Roger Simon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $19.95); SEE HOW THEY RUN by Paul Taylor (Knopf; $22.95). Three observers of the '88 presidential campaign agree that Republicans win the big ones because they manipulate voters' emotions and juggle images better than Democrats.

MOVIES

AVALON. If gemutlichkeit were a Yiddish word, it would describe the tone that writer-director Barry Levinson aims for in this bustling memoir of his immigrant grandparents in Baltimore. But the family portrait is too soft- focus, and the residue is schmaltz.

THE KRAYS. In the 1950s and '60s, these Cockney twins ruled the London underworld with silken sadism. Peter Medak's brisk docudrama understands the mom-obsessed brutality of the Krays. The sun set on the British Empire, and the vermin came out to play.

ETCETERA

COMING OUT OF THEIR SHELLS. There is more to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than movies, TV, comics, toys, candy and juice drinks. Now they have their own concert tour, destined for 40 cities through 1991 (this week: Milwaukee, Oct. 10-14; next stop: Detroit, Oct. 17-21). The 90-min. audience-participation show features many live-action characters familiar to turtle fans, including the metal-cloaked villain Shredder. With humor aimed at parents as well, this could be a perfect first concert for kids. Ready for pre-schoolers dancing in the aisles?

WOUNDED KNEE: LEST WE FORGET, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyo. One hundred years after the army massacred more than 145 Sioux at Wounded Knee, S. Dak., an exhibit of photo murals, weaponry and Ghost Dance garments illuminates the tribe's life and religion in the late 19th century and the reasons behind the killings. Through Nov. 30.

STIRRING UP THE BORSCHT

JACKIE MASON: BRAND NEW. Well, not really. The Brillo-haired rabbi turned comic has been doing the same basic Borscht Belt act for decades, but he seems to have a tireless capacity for self-resuscitation. A year after a sitcom flop on ABC, a much publicized racial slight of New York City Mayor David Dinkins, and an embarrassing paternity suit, Mason is on the comeback trail, ! windmilling in three directions. His latest book, How to Talk Jewish, is to be published in January. His weekly talk show debuts on cable in December with a novel solution to the perennial problem of finding good guests: there won't be any, just Mason schmoozing for half an hour. And this week Mason returns to Broadway with an all-new monologue that is bound to revisit such accustomed topics as sex, politics and Mason's all but patented specialty, the undeclared cultural clash between Christians and Jews. All in all, Mason seems to be enacting a phrase from the subtitle of his book: How to Get Everything You Ever Wanted Through Pure Chutzpah.