Critics' Voices

By TIME''s Reviewers. Compiled by Andrea Sachs

THEATER

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND. Manhattan's Playwrights Horizons has an enviable record: many of its limited-run hits, including Driving Miss Daisy, The Heidi Chronicles and Falsettoland, have moved on to greater fame on larger stages. The latest gift, to Broadway, is this musical folktale about love and magic on a mythical Caribbean isle, with a calypso-flecked score that may remind some of Disney's The Little Mermaid.

THE ICEMAN COMETH. As O'Neill's bedeviled drunk turned reformer, film star Brian Dennehy (FX) gives a charming and chilling performance that rivals Jason Robards' definitive portrayal. But the surprises in the production at Chicago's Goodman Theater are the rest of the splendid cast and the painterly, expressionistic staging by Robert Falls.

RICHARD III. Funny but never scary, Stacy Keach's inexplicably ballyhooed performance at Washington's Folger Theater suggests Captain Hook more than Shakespeare's monstrous monarch. The ensemble surrounding him is strictly amateur night, a melange of mincing courtiers portraying what are supposed to be buccaneer politicians. The sole saving grace is K. Lype O'Dell's intelligent, opportunistic and mercifully underplayed Hastings.

MUSIC

CHET ATKINS AND MARK KNOPFLER: NECK AND NECK (Columbia). Two mighty pickers . kick back, do a little singing, a little guitar plucking, and pull off a sublime exercise in countrified sophistication. "Show a little respect for your elders," Atkins teases Knopfler during an easygoing version of There'll Be Some Changes Made, and the whole record becomes a kind of cross- generational tribute to musical roots, from one master to another.

JESUS JONES: LIQUIDIZER (SBK). Lots of electronic sampling here, and some fat- bottom rhythm, but this London-based band is no simple dance monster. Its social message has heft, its lyrics spirit. "Don't you know happy is never enough?" is guaranteed never to be heard on the sound track of thirtysomething.

TELEVISION

GET A LIFE (Fox, Sundays, 8:30 p.m. EDT). Chris Elliott, former Late Night with David Letterman cutup, plays a nerdy 30-year-old still living with his parents. Elliott's manic gooniness is an acquired taste, but this so-dumb- it's-funny sitcom could be his breakthrough to mainstream success.

TESTING DIRTY (ABC, Oct. 18, 4 p.m. EDT). In this well-told Afterschool Special, a high school athlete is suspended after failing an inaccurate drug test, dramatizing the pitfalls of drug-abuse-prevention programs.

JUDGMENT (HBO, Oct. 17, 21, 25). A kindly parish priest turns out to be a child molester in this provocative if predictable cable movie written and directed by Tom Topor (The Accused).

BOOKS

THE POLK CONSPIRACY by Kati Marton (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; $22.95). The former newswoman and wife of TV anchor Peter Jennings uncovers new information about the 1948 murder of CBS journalist George Polk in Salonika bay, Greece -- and fresh evidence of a cover-up by the Greek and U.S. governments.

TREND TRACKING by Gerald Celente, with Tom Milton (Wiley; $24.95). Far better than the best-selling Megatrends, this analysis of current economic, social and political conditions foresees disgruntled voters flocking to a third party, a return to the idealism of the '60s and career opportunities in such fields as education, solar energy and marine biology. But avoid cookie franchises. The world, say the authors, "doesn't need a new chocolate chip cookie."

ART

THE FAUVE LANDSCAPE: MATISSE, DERAIN, BRAQUE, AND THEIR CIRCLE, 1904-1908, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In one of the most productive periods of French art, the Fauves, or "wild beasts," created works that shocked the public and . altered the course of 20th century painting. Through Dec. 30.

COURT ARTS OF INDONESIA, Asia Society in New York City. Sculpture, court regalia, shadow puppets, dance masks and jewelry make up this splendid exhibition. The galleries resemble a kraton, or palace, where princes once assembled the finest treasures of the kingdom on ceremonial occasions. Through Dec. 16.

MOVIES

HENRY & JUNE. X was never like this. The first movie rated NC-17 (no children under 17) is as pretty as a French postcard but much less erotic. Philip Kaufman's biopic of authors Henry Miller and Anais Nin wanders through Paris boudoirs of the 1930s and finds smoke, not steam.

PACIFIC HEIGHTS. Weirdo Michael Keaton squats in a house and tries to drive the nice couple who own it crazy. Sound like Beetlejuice II? Not quite: this thriller concentrates on turning familiar fears into plausible melodrama. The result is one of the slickest haunted-house movies since Psycho.

INTERROGATION. A Polish woman (Krystyna Janda) is arrested and tortured by the state, then bears her inquisitor's child -- a poignant metaphor for a generation of Poles sired in fear. Ryszard Bugajski's political horror movie, banned for eight years, plays like a suicide note smuggled out of the Gulag.

FRESHENING UP MOLDY OLDIES

RHINO RECORDS. A small but scrappy Southern California label that does some superb -- and economical -- musical salvage work, Rhino specializes in repackaging oldies that more established companies have let gather dust in the vaults, from the high-octane rockabilly of Del Shannon to the screeching serenades of Lou Christie. Rhino's recent Groove 'n' Grind compilation is a floor-scuffling, roof-raising anthology of raucous party tunes from the '50s and '60s, featuring sodden classics like Land of 1,000 Dances by Cannibal and the Headhunters. The current Rockin' in the Country: The Best of Wanda Jackson is a roundup of much of the prime material recorded by a vocalist who has real roadhouse spirit and a way with a song that makes her right for the kind of reappraisal this set encourages and amply justifies. Jazz fans should also take note. Rhino has just released a 16-track compilation called Jumpin' at Capitol: The Best of the Nat King Cole Trio, a heavenly slice of rhythmic virtuosity covering the years 1943-1950.