Madeleine

Lies are a lousy thing on which to base a relationship, much less a life.That's why the characters of Jonathan Nossiter's "Sunday," the FTC grand-jury-prize winner at the 1997 Sundance Festival, are doomed from the start.It's also why the film they inhabit is so compellingly labyrinthine, so endlessly intriguing and so ultimately frustrating. Labyrinthine, because the lies and fabrications are piled on so thickly that you won't know who -- or what -- to believe. Intriguing because that uncertainty demands that you pay attention.

It could have been the snow or the dreary subject matter that left several seats empty at Colonial Players' theater Sunday. Some subscribers could have been put off by the play's focus on ethnic oppression in mid-17th-century Ireland, when Oliver Cromwell's oppressive English colonization policies prevailed. But that would have been unfortunate, because it is precisely this dark history that makes English playwright Helen Edmundson's 1993 play "The Clearing" such an absorbing, emotionally charged drama.

On October 15, 2005, RUTH MADELEINE (nee Miller); beloved wife of the late Leonard R. Rawlings; devoted mother of Jean Sprouse and her husband Walter, Marie Corvese and her husband Donald and the late Thomas Rawlings. Aslo survived by eight grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren and two great great-grandchildren. Funeral Service will be held at the family owned Duda-Ruck Funeral Home of Dundalk, Inc., 7922 Wise Avenue, on Wednesday 12 noon. Interment Oak Lawn Cemetery. Friends may call on Tuesday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M.

On April 29, 2003 ROBERT JOSEPH CLAUSEN, beloved husband of Maria Clausen (nee Balsavia); devoted father of Robert D. Clausen and his wife Maureen and Susan Clausen Paquin and her husband John; dear brother of Anita Bova; dear grandfather of Joseph and Madeleine Clausen and Christopher Paquin. Friends may call at the family owned Ruck Towson Funeral Home Inc., 1050 York Rd (beltway exit 26A) on Thursday 6 to 9 p.m. where a vigil service will be held at 7 p.m. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated in The Church of the Nativity on Friday at 10:30 a.m. Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens.

I never thought I'd miss Brenda and Dylan.Then I saw Shannen Doherty and Judd Nelson in "Blindfold: Acts of Obsession," a USA cable movie that premieres at 9 tonight.The film features some of the worst acting, sloppiest editing and most atrocious dialogue of the entire TV season. And that's not the half of it. There's lots of titillation, with Doherty shown at several points blindfolded and tied up -- immobile, vulnerable, sexual. To those with healthier inclinations, "Blindfold" appeals not a whit.

As Madeleine Jansen prepares to play the title role in her high school's production of Fiddler on the Roof, the Mount Airy teen-ager is taking her cues from a musician who is more than a little bit familiar with the classic. Her tutor, Lya Stern, played violin a quarter century ago in a production starring the actor whose name is synonymous with the play, Zero Mostel. "She tells me stories about the production of the original Fiddler, like when Zero Mostel ... would change the act each night and how the actors and orchestra would have to follow along and keep on their toes," said Madeleine, who will make her debut in the fiddler role when South Carroll High School's production opens a four-performance run tonight.

There he is, tall and lithe, bashfully looking at the camera as he swings a large ax and chops firewood. Next, we're treated to glimpses of him teaching English in Chile and, then, pulling on rubber gloves to scrub a toilet. These scenes may sound about as exciting as watching your grandmother take a nap. Except, it's no ordinary man we're watching -- it's that hot, hot, hot Prince William. Young, Sexy & Royal, one hour of dishy froth on cable's Women's Entertainment channel tonight, appears to have been thrown together with the belief that it doesn't matter what princes and princesses do. If they have blue blood coursing through their veins, people will watch.

Colonial Players continues its 52nd season by doing what the company does best, introducing to the area a relatively new, substantive work. Beginning tomorrow, the all-volunteer company will present "The Clearing" by contemporary British playwright Helen Edmundson. The play was acclaimed by critics when it first appeared in London in 1993 and in its U.S. debut in Chicago in 1996, with comparisons to American playwright Arthur Miller in the way great moral issues are addressed within a personal drama.

It could have been the snow or the dreary subject matter that left several seats empty at Colonial Players' theater in Annapolis on Sunday. Some subscribers could have been put off by the play's focus on ethnic oppression in mid-17th-century Ireland, when Oliver Cromwell's oppressive English colonization policies prevailed. But that would have been unfortunate, because it is precisely this dark history that makes English playwright Helen Edmundson's 1993 play "The Clearing" such an emotionally charged drama.

Hope that the cachet of French fashion will translate into cash is the impetus behind two new mail-order catalogs and the recent opening of a French department store in New York City. While the Gallic glories of Galeries Lafayette can be sampled in the Big Apple, La Redoute and Madeleine fashion catalogs are anxious to drop by your mailbox if you'll just call and invite them.La Redoute is the largest catalog house in France, so it makes sense that it has teamed with its American counterpart, Sears, for distribution on this side of the Atlantic.