Falling In Love

Princess Leonide has a problem. She's fallen in love at first sight with Prince Agis. But he's been raised to despise her because she inherited the throne that is rightfully his.And that's not all. Agis lives in seclusion with a philosopher named Hermocrate and Hermocrate's sister, both of whom have not only sworn off love, they shun society to the point of turning away all visitors.What's a princess to do?Well, since Leonide is the heroine of a play called "The Triumph of Love," it's a good bet that her love will triumph in the end.And Center Stage's production, directed by Irene Lewis and using a new, breezy translation by James Magruder, is a minor triumph in itself, resuscitating this semi-obscure 18th-century comedy by the long-overlooked French playwright Marivaux.

"Prelude to a Kiss," the Craig Lucas comedy-fantasy in production at the Colonial Players of Annapolis, is actually two plays in one.For most of the first act, it is a sassy, engaging, fast-paced romantic comedy that features a most engaging pair of lovers.Rita, played by Katherine Ruttum, is a feisty, leftist insomniac who is a great pleasure to watch as she falls for Peter Hoskins (Jim Gallagher), the intelligent, earnest product of a dysfunctional family who has lived to love another day. As he experiences that "blissful, psychotic first blush of love," we are with him every step of the way.But following a strange incident at the wedding, Rita undergoes a dramatic transformation on their Jamaican honeymoon.

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT(Columbia TriStar, rated PG, 1992)Robert Redford has accomplished with his director role in "A River Runs Through It" what few veterans have managed: He has created a deep sense of feeling.It's not that the film evokes a specific emotional response from the viewer, although it does that as well; it's that the film itself is the celluloid crystallization of the indescribable deep-seated feelings that drive most everyone but are seldom consciously acknowledged.If an alien were to land on the planet and you were at a loss to verbally convey the emotion of love for a family member and all the unspoken bonding, lack of understanding, joy and frustration that that entails, you could show the creature this film and he would immediately comprehend.

A BOOK OF LOVE: WRITERSAND THEIR LOVE LETTERS.Edited by Cathy N. Davidson.Pocket Books.285 pages. $22.We don't write letters much anymore, even to those we love. We reach out and touch someone by phone. Or we say it with flowers, or a greeting card. If Miles Standish had had Hallmark, he wouldn't have needed John Alden to do his wooing for him and, who knows, may have ended up winning Priscilla Mullins' affections for himself.The latest wrinkle in courtship communication is via computer networks.

WATERMARK.Joseph Brodsky.Farrar, Straus & Giroux.135 pages. $15.Falling in love with certain books can be like falling in love with certain human beings. At first, there may be indifference, incomprehension and even dislike. Then -- gradually or suddenly -- the bandages of misunderstanding unwrap themselves to reveal one's touchable fate: the luminous doom of recognizing the almost intolerably high value of something or someone outside of oneself.At this point, I am no more than half in love with "Watermark," Joseph Brodsky's abrasively lyrical book on Venice.

Real estate agents feel the electricity in the air when those looking at a home become "hot buyers." It's an emotional feeling similar to falling in love.But letting your emotions lead you into a home purchase is one of the five most common errors homebuyers make, real estate specialists say. Even in today's buyer's market, someone caught in the emotional frenzy of a home purchase can easily overpay."This is the best market for buyers since World War II, so don't slip on a banana peel," says Carolyn Janik, co-author of the Penguin paperback called "All America's Real Estate Book."