Television, Theater, Cinema, Books: Feb. 28, 1964

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TELEVISION

Wednesday, February 26 CHRONICLE (CBS, 7:30-8:30 p.m.).* A tour of Manhattan's 75-year-old theatrical institution, the Players Club, with Howard Lindsay, Dennis King, Jason Robards Jr. and Marc Connelly.

Friday, February 28 THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS (NBC, 9:30-10 p.m.). A satirical topical revue that has found occasional teeth after a disappointingly gummy premiere.

CAROL AND COMPANY (CBS, 10-11 p.m.). Carol Burnett and Robert Preston in a musical variety special.

Saturday, February 29 THE SAGA OF WESTERN MAN—1898 (ABC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). Third in a series of four specials centering on important years in history, this one about the winning of the West, the Spanish-American War, and Teddy Roosevelt.

BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATER (NBC, 8:30-9:30 p.m.). "Meal Ticket," Budd (What Makes Sammy Run?} Schulberg's first TV script.

Sunday, March 1 DISCOVERY (ABC, 1-1:30 p.m.). Second part of a visit to Moscow, including children's ballet classes, the Obratsov puppets, Popov the clown, and performing animals.

ISSUES AND ANSWERS (ABC, 1:30-2 p.m.). Howard K. Smith interviews Senator Margaret Chase Smith on her candidacy for the presidency.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (CBS, 6-6:30 p.m.). "The Agony of Austria," a recounting of the 1938 Anschluss, featuring an interview with Kurt von Schuschnigg, who was Austrian Chancellor when the Nazis annexed the country, now is a professor at St. Louis University.

BRITAIN: THE CHANGING GUARD (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). A news special on the revolution in Britain's class structure.

Tuesday, March 3 OUR MAN IN WASHINGTON (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). David Brinkley's view of "high-society foreign policy," with film clips of J.F.K.. Jackie Kennedy, Dean Rusk, Earl Warren, Bobby Kennedy and others.

THEATER

On Broadway

RUGANTINO, an Italian-language musical with English titles suspended over the stage, is a pleasant Broadway novelty. Its bawdry is innocent, its humor earthy, its girls look blessedly like girls, and its picaresque hero is forever outwitting himself.

AFTER THE FALL. In a play dexterously staged by Elia Kazan to represent the ebb and flow of events in memory, Playwright Arthur Miller examines the women who (he believes) have done him wrong and the wrongs he did them. The play's closeness to Miller's life belongs more properly to exhibitionism than to art, and it is naggingly self-absorbed in the importance of being Arthur.

DYLAN. In his final years, Dylan Thomas mourned in drink the distance between himself and the height of his poetic powers. Sir Alec Guinness is just the actor to show the humor, insight and inner pain of the sinking man.

HELLO, DOLLY! Bold, brassy, breezy Matchmaker Carol Channing winks her way into and out of any plot twist in a handsome musical that dances along exuberantly on the toes of the Gower Champion chorus.

NOBODY LOVES AN ALBATROSS. How to be a charmingly roguish phony is demonstrated by a zany TV writer-producer (Robert Preston) who spouts triple-tongued, two-timing dialogue.

BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. Before the rice is out of their clothes, Newlyweds Elizabeth Ashley and Robert Redford are into neighbor, in-law and apartment tangles that are joyously unraveled by love, tiffs and laughter.