THE BEST OF 1983

Brighton Beach Memoirs. Neil Simon mixes slapstick and sentiment in his autobiographical play about an American family, that secret society where the passwords are forgive and remember.

La Cage aux Folies. The one megabit musical in a torpid Broadway season, Harvey Fierstein's gay valentine boasts a spectacular turn by George Hearn, as a Saint-Tropez drag queen, and surefire Jerry Herman songs that might have been composed on a calliope.

Fen and Top Girls. In the first, five women till the harsh swampland of Norfolk; in the second, a Thatcheresque career woman chats with her peers from throughout history. In both, British Feminist Caryl Churchill displays acerbic ironies and dazzling technique.

Galas. Or: The Life and Hard Times of Maria Callas. Leave it to off-off-Broadway's Charles Ludlam--playwright, producer, director and, in the title role, every inch a diva--to put the art back into commedia dell'arte.

Isn't It Romantic. Wendy Wasserstein looks at two sisters under the skin--one a Wasp princess, the other a Jewish frogette--in an irresistible off-Broadway comedy about coming to terms with endearment.

My One and Only. A trunkful of Gershwin songs, colorful sets from a wise child's kindergarten and a pair of toe-tapping charmers in Twiggy and Tommy Tune make for Broadway's airiest enchantment.

'night, Mother. A young woman announces her intention to commit suicide; her mom uses every dithery wile to prevent her. Marsha Norman's Pulitzer prizewinner is equally entertaining and harrowing; in the only roles, Kathy Bates and Anne Pitoniak shine with love and anger.

Painting Churches. The twilight of life, the dawn of senility: Chekhov comes to Beacon Hill in Tina Howe's sweet, zestful off-Broadway comedy.

Passion. The Jekyll of respectability duels with the Hyde of libido. Peter Nichols' unsettling domestic comedy survived a ragged Broadway production with many of its virtues (and Actress Roxanne Hart's Circean charms) intact.

Quartermaine's Terms. Quartermaine, an aging instructor at an English school for foreigners, is one of nature's near misses: a decent mediocrity, for whom other people's crises are mere whispers in the anteroom of his mind. In Remak Ramsay's off-Broadway performance, Simon Gray's British import found the perfect pitch of melancholy.