Television: May 17, 1968

Wednesday, May 15

CBS PLAYHOUSE (CBS, 9:30-11 p.m.).* Arthur Hill, Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson star in Secrets, Tad Mosel's original drama about an accountant who refuses to account to his family or friends for his increasingly odd behavior.

Thursday, May 16

MAN, BEAST & THE LAND (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). A study of life on the Seren-geti-Mara plains of East Africa, one of the greatest remaining game reserves, where more than 1,000,000 animals roam free. Two Smithsonian Institution ecologists, Dr. and Mrs. Lee Talbot, guide the cameras, which single out the bedraggled and ungainly looking wildebeest as the most important animal on the plains.

Friday, May 17

JUDD FOR THE DEFENSE (ABC, 10-11 p.m.). "Tempest in a Texas Town," voted last year's Best TV Mystery by the Mystery Writers of America. Repeat.

Saturday, May 18

THE PREAKNESS (CBS, 5-5:45 p.m.), with commentary straight from the horses' mounts, featuring Eddie Arcaro and Willie Shoemaker.

Sunday, May 19

COLONIAL NATIONAL INVITATIONAL GOLF TOURNAMENT (ABC, 4-6 p.m.). Final round of the $125,000 tournament at Fort Worth's Colonial Country Club.

THE 20TH ANNUAL TELEVISION ACADEMY AWARDS (NBC, 10-11:30 p.m.). Every dog has its day, and this is the industry's special night to howl. Frank Sinatra is M.C. in Hollywood, Dick Van Dyke in New York.

Tuesday, May 21

CBS REPORTS: HUNGER IN AMERICA (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Correspondents David Culhane and Charles Kuralt conduct a study of the 10 million Americans who suffer from severe malnutrition, and of the successes and failures of Government programs to help them.

THEATER

On Broadway

HAIR. Now that the hippie notion is fading away, a slickly packaged version of hippiedom has swung onto Broadway. The songs rock, the expletives explode and the energetic cast exuberates—but so quickly does U.S. society shift that the play's topics for dissent are often worn and dated. Director Tom O'Horgan achieves startling production effects even though distraction is certainly no substitute for destination.

JOE EGG. Into his unlikely comedy Peter Nichols throws snatches of tap-dance routines, jazz and vaudeville turns that leaven the tale of a young British couple (Zena Walker and Donal Donnelly) who camouflage the fragility of their marriage by concentrating their attentions and emotions on their hopelessly spastic daughter.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, takes a chip off the old Bard to construct a neo-Elizabethan existentialist drama. Brian Murray and John Wood are extremely adept as Tom Stoppard's nether heroes of flashing wit but blinking comprehension.

Off Broadway

THE MEMORANDUM. Director Joseph Papp introduces Czech Playwright Vaclav Havel to the U.S. with this wacky and pointed satire on bureaucracy and its bombast. Robert Ronan is pluperfect as the prissy pedant of Ptydepe, an artificial office language in which "ah" becomes "zukybaj," "ouch" becomes "bykur," "oh" becomes "hayf dy doretob."