By EMILY MITCHELL

Top Speed to Shakespeare Who says an actor can't go from the bus to the Bard? KEANU REEVES, star of the movie Speed, did it with resounding success. As Hamlet for 3O sold-out performances at the Manitoba Theater Center in Winnipeg, he is getting standing ovations. ``Keanu has amazing physicality and a lot of raw passion. So does Hamlet,'' says director Lewis Baumander, who did a Romeo and Juliet in Toronto with Reeves 11 years ago. Canada's Stephen Russell, who plays Claudius, credits Reeves, 30, with bringing a younger audience in from the cold: ``He is opening eyes to Shakespeare.'' Another excellent adventure.

Do What Mother Says The oversize baggy clothes that are the favored gear for snowboarders -- ``they're like pajamas,'' jokes GERTRUDE BOYLE--may not be all that flattering, but does she care? And those pictures for her company's ads may be silly, but do they bother her? ``I am comfortable with who I am. You have to be able to laugh at yourself,'' says the woman everyone calls Gert. Because of her amusingly self-mocking ads, Gert can laugh all the way to the bank. The ceo of the U.S.'s Columbia Sportswear, she is known from France to New Zealand as the bossy, tough mother with the born to nag tattoo on her bicep. Boyle, 70, who escaped from Nazi Germany in 1938, took over her family-owned Oregon company with her son Tim in 1970 after her husband's death. Since 1983, when she began to appear in Columbia's ads, global revenues jumped from $9.4 million to $265 million last year. O.K., is she as tough as she looks? ``Between 8 and 5,'' she insists, ``I'm tougher.'' But after that, says Gert, ``I'm just like any other grandmother.'' You'd better believe it, and that's an order.

Now for the Hardest Part By playing her best tennis, NAOKO SAWAMATSU, 21, lifted the spirits of her family, who lost their home in Japan's earthquake. Despite her worries, the Kobe university student advanced to the Australian Open quarterfinals before losing to Arantxa Sanchez Vicario. Her fighting spirit was undefeated. Before leaving Melbourne, she said she and her family ``will have a real battle from now on because we now have no permanent place to live.''

SEEN & HEARD Prince Khaled bin Sultan, Saudi co-commander with Norman Schwarzkopf of coalition forces during the Gulf War, has scores of decorations. The only thing missing was a book contract, and now he has that. In May the retired general's memoirs, Desert War, will be published in English by HarperCollins, the first book for an international readership by a member of the Saudi royal family

It could happen to anyone, even to a presidential candidate. With his $350 utility bill overdue, France's state-owned electric company shut off power to Prime Minister Edouard Balladur's Deauville vacation home. It was a procedural error, the company said, but charged a late fee. Balladur was in Paris at the time, and it was only for a day--but an embarrassing one.