Adaptation

As a performer, Felicia Curry is lithe, liquid, refined. She must be at least three-quarters cat, because she seems incapable of making any movement, including waggling her butt, that isn't a masterpiece of unself-conscious elegance. As is true of all felines, Curry's artistry is rooted in strength, hard work and discipline. It's faintly ironic, then, that she's starring in a children's show about the importance of breaking free from constraints. If You Go The Araboolies of Liberty Street runs through Aug. 12 at Imagination Stage, 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda.

"Baroque-pop" artist Badly Drawn Boy, whose most recent album, Born in the UK, was released in October, performs Tuesday night at 7:30 at the 9:30 Club. BDB, also known as Damon Gough, also scored the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy. Adem is also billed. The 9:30 Club is at 815 V St. N.W., Washington. Tickets are $25. Call 800-955-5566 or go to tickets.com.

Michael Sragow rates In the Wild an A, calling it "a genuine odyssey" that "achieves the extraordinary with ecstatic epiphanies." What's your take on director Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's book of self-discovery in the wilderness? Join the discussion this weekend at baltimoresun.com/criticalmass.

Adaptations are never easy to bring off.And adaptations of classic theater by the likes of Aristophanes, Sophocles and Moliere are darned near impossible.How do you capture enough period nuances to do honor to the original while switching venues, modifying characters and bringing the declamatory poetic style of yesteryear alive for contemporary audiences?The folks at Colonial Players know how, because they have just opened a production of Moliere's hilarious 17th-century comedy, "The Learned Ladies," that's almost as feisty and fizzy as it must have been when France's greatest comic playwright had them rolling in the aisles at Versailles during the august reign of his benefactor, King Louis XIV.I doubt that the Sun King's retinue would have comprehended the hillbilly accents of the Nashville social climbers who provide the grist for Moliere's satirical mill in this adaptation by Freyda Thomas.

Blake Edwards' 1982 movie, "Victor/Victoria," was such fun, you have to wonder what a stage adaptation -- even one adapted by Edwards himself -- could possibly add to it. Judging from the touring production at the Mechanic Theatre, the answer is: Not much.This is especially puzzling since the movie would appear to be a natural source for a stage musical. A film about performers in a fancy French club, it included not merely songs (by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse), but full-fledged production numbers.

The Annapolis Opera Company presented a sorrowful version of Franz Lehar's "The Merry Widow" last weekend at Maryland Hall.The sets were spare, some of the costumes ridiculous, and the singing and acting uneven.Two sopranos alternated in the title role of Hanna Glawari, the Eastern European widow whose $20 million fortune is coveted by the tiny, mythical, impoverished country of Pontevedria.Phyllis Burg, who sang Friday, was slow to warm, with her top notes a bit strident through part of the first act. In the second act, however, she delivered a hauntingly lovely ballad, "Vilya."

The Arts & Entertainment cable channel has delivered some superb British programming in recent years, such as "Cracker," "The House of Eliott" and "A Touch of Frost." But "Pride and Prejudice," the lavish BBC/A&E co-production that starts tomorrow night at 9, sets a new benchmark in style, wit and charm.The six-hour adaptation of Jane Austen's account of the five Bennett sisters may be the best miniseries of the television year, with an almost mind-boggling amount of talent.For those who slept through high-school lit class and missed the television adaptation that aired a decade ago on "Masterpiece Theatre," "Pride and Prejudice" is one of the most beloved European novels in literature.

Scads of hit musicals, from "Show Boat" to "Sunset Boulevard," have been adapted from novels and movies. But musicals based on classic plays are relatively rare.When you get past Shaw and Shakespeare, the list grows thin. And, even the works of these two masters have spawned some musical clunkers. Is there anyone -- besides collectors of such trivia -- who remembers the short-lived 1968 musical, "Her First Roman," based on Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra"? Or "Rockabye Hamlet," eight years later?

Your choice: On ABC, you can watch the blatherings of the year's allegedly most interesting people; on VH-1, you can watch performances by better than a dozen of the most talented musicians of 1968 (not to mention ever)."Disney's Beauty and the Beast: A Concert On Ice" (9 p.m.-10 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Russian skaters Ekaterina Gordeeva and Victor Petrenko portray Belle and her Beast in this ice-bound adaptation of Disney's Broadway adaptation of its movie adaptation of the classic children's tale.

Even if traditional furniture design is not especially to your liking, it still warrants careful examination from an aesthetic as well as a functional standpoint. That's true, by the way, for almost every element of interior design that has survived decades' or centuries' worth of changes in taste and usage.They all have something to teach us.The bureau-bookcase, also known as a secretary, is one of history's most successful examples of multifunctional furniture -- though it's been categorized in that way only relatively recently.

Cadillac Records *** ( 3 STARS) This movie hasn't gotten the push it deserves from distributors or critics, but Darnell Martin's movie about Leonard Chess, the self-made Chicago "record man" who put Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Chuck Berry and Howlin' Wolf on vinyl and paid Alan Freed and other DJs to put them on the air, sends audiences out singing its praises. Whatever you feel about the contention that Chess and company created rock 'n' roll, the movie makes a great case for it: You feel present at the birth of a new American pop culture.

Although movie critics like to mock multipart British literary adaptations for being slavishly reverential to their sources, let's just admit that at their best they provide actors with greater opportunities to develop complex characters than any other form of art or entertainment. Even mediocre bookish miniseries can make certain movies seem inadequate or superfluous. After decades of Masterpiece Theatre, a new adaptation of a classic needs a raison d'etre, whether it's Roman Polanski pouring his first-hand knowledge of threatened youth into Oliver Twist or Joe Wright having the fresh idea to rough up Pride and Prejudice and show just how economically desperate an unmarried woman in Jane Austen's England can be. Who can even remember the big-screen Nicholas Nickleby from 2002?

Michael Sragow rates In the Wild an A, calling it "a genuine odyssey" that "achieves the extraordinary with ecstatic epiphanies." What's your take on director Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's book of self-discovery in the wilderness? Join the discussion this weekend at baltimoresun.com/criticalmass.

All things by immortal power near or far to each other hiddenly linked are. That thou cans't not stir a flower without troubling a star. That's what 19th-century British poet Francis Thompson wrote in verses that could have been the epigraph to Stardust, Matthew Vaughn's entertaining and sometimes enthralling adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Victorian fantasy about a troubled star. Stardust (Paramount) Starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro. Directed by Matthew Vaughn.

As a performer, Felicia Curry is lithe, liquid, refined. She must be at least three-quarters cat, because she seems incapable of making any movement, including waggling her butt, that isn't a masterpiece of unself-conscious elegance. As is true of all felines, Curry's artistry is rooted in strength, hard work and discipline. It's faintly ironic, then, that she's starring in a children's show about the importance of breaking free from constraints. If You Go The Araboolies of Liberty Street runs through Aug. 12 at Imagination Stage, 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda.

A swift, sharp adaptation of Stephen King's short story, 1408 may be a fairly unassuming achievement as supernatural thrillers go. But if you don't bring to it blockbuster expectations, you will experience an artfully sustained atmosphere of dread and a ghost story with an eye toward the mind games people play on themselves in times of crisis. Like many King stories (this one from the Everything's Eventual collection), it's about a nonbeliever who comes to believe. John Cusack can play cynical, bored characters in his sleep and, it must be said, sometimes has. Here, though, portraying a travel writer specializing in allegedly haunted locales, the actor deploys his deadpan cool very artfully in the service of a man who has suffered a traumatic loss and is doing his best to skate over the memories.

Details are still being ironed out, but plans call for a major Hollywood-style bash when Hairspray has its Baltimore premiere at the Charles on July 18, two days before opening throughout the country. Members of the cast and crew will be on hand, and the public will have a chance to attend the premiere, with proceeds benefiting AIDS Action Baltimore and Baltimore Homeless Services. Hairspray, starring John Travolta, Queen Latifah, Michelle Pfeiffer and newcomer Nikki Blonsky, is the film version of the Broadway musical that won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Since I couldn't make it to Bike Week at Daytona, I did the next best thing. I went to see the two big motorcycle movies that are playing in theaters this month. I had high hopes for Wild Hogs, but it turned out to be City Slickers on wheels without the poignant humor or the cute bovine love interest. There were no such expectations for Ghost Rider, the inexplicably popular Marvel Comic adaptation, but it wasn't a total loss. For those of us who have been waiting years for Nicolas Cage to burst into flames, it was well worth the price of admission.

"Baroque-pop" artist Badly Drawn Boy, whose most recent album, Born in the UK, was released in October, performs Tuesday night at 7:30 at the 9:30 Club. BDB, also known as Damon Gough, also scored the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel About a Boy. Adem is also billed. The 9:30 Club is at 815 V St. N.W., Washington. Tickets are $25. Call 800-955-5566 or go to tickets.com.

Halloween tends to bring out the kid in the adult - even for 6-foot-4, 340-pound Haloti Ngata. Dressed as a magician with a sharp tuxedo, top hat and wand Monday night, Ngata - at least for one night - was transported back to his childhood days, when he trick-or-treated through his family's neighborhood in Salt Lake City in search of his favorite candy, Reese's peanut butter cups. Bengals@Ravens Sunday, 1 p.m., Ch. 13, 1090 AM, 97.9 FM Line: Ravens by 3 Notable Halloween costumes Best film adaptation -- Guard Edwin Mulitalo was imposing as the Phantom of the Opera.