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Arts:Chelsea Theater Moves Out of BrooklynBY JOHN S. PATTERSONThe Chelsea Theatre Center has been at the heart of the new institutional theatre movement. Over the past ten years they have produced many hits and have becom e favorites of the theatre going public.It is easy to understand why: the Center produced %u201c Candide,%u201d which succeeded where the original failed, and %u201c H appy End,%u201d the American premiere of that Brecht \piece. They are currently running two hits at their new W est side venue, a converted church on W est 43rd Street.%u201c Vanities%u201d is the story of three cheerleaders who age, show it, and tell about it in a touching kaleidoscope which has turned into a long running, success now spanning two seasons. %u201c Piano Bar%u201d is a cabaret musical housed in the cabaret on the top floor of the old church and it follows the path of the new (old) bookless m usical. W eak on story, it dazzles with performance and features Tony award winner Kelly Bishop. They are readying their new season and seem to have settled well into their new home.What has been overlooked in all this is the fact that there has actually been a split in this group, which occurred with the C enter's rem oval from the Brooklyn Academy of Music to M anhattan. A rtistic D irector Bob Kalfin continues to direct the Chelsea Theatre Center, and with great effectiveness it seems. Michael David, formerly Managing D irector o f CTC, has remained at BAM, where he is w orking with other form erm em bers of the group to establish a new theatre under his own direction and sponsored directly by the Academy itself.%u201c More people interested in the kind of play Chelsea produces would come to Manhattan than would go to Brooklyn,%u201d said CTC Artistic Director Bob Kalfin. This fact had a significant effect on the economics of this non-profit company and actually began to influence artistic decisions.Despite the fact that Chelsea acquired its present Manhattan home six years ago, seriotis space limitations existed at BAM and continued to continue at their West Side locations -- they simply ended up with three 200-seat theaters. The space could not be expanded because of architecture and union manning requirem ents. The squeeze of low possible profits from the kind of large-scale productions for which Chelsea is noted, along with low seating capacity and skyrocketing costs actually forced the company to retrench and try to catch up with its deficits.A part of that retrenchment meant leaving Brooklyn, according to Kalfin. Another part has been functioning as a presentation house, while an even more significant part is a search for an even larger theater space. The West Side terminal is now under consideration.%u201c Leaving Brooklyn,%u201d according to Kalfin, %u201c was am icable, no fireworks. People may want to look for dirt, but there isn%u2019t any. W e%u2019re just trying to do the best theater we can.%u201dIt is important to the life of New York theatre that both these groups exist. Chelsea has already proven itself both artistically and financially. With time has come the know-how which produces quality theatre at reasonable prices and, given the tourist priced attractions o f B roadw ay, the institutional theatre is gradually becom ing the entertainment refuge of the New Yorker. For the same reason it is essential that Brooklyn have its own committed, savvy, professional group ready and able topresent quality entertainment on the local scene.Broadway cannot and will not do this, so gradually the theatre becomes a luxury akin to dining at %u201c 21%u201d or refurnishing a home. It becomes a king of %u201c once in a lifetime experience.%u201d Obviously, money can be made from this kind o f elitist approach. This years profits prove it. But the kind of theatre this produces, thekir ' i%u00a3.nce it tosters,aiiu the ettect on the spiritual and artistic life of the city and, due to the status of New York as the national theatre center, the nation, is costly indeed. Chelsea, BAM, the Public, LaMama, all have a role and a responsibility which extends beyond the dreary commercial speculations which seem to dominate so much of theatre today.I l lS i l l*%u2018AFRICA INANTIQUITY,%u2019 theArts of AncientNubia and theSudan opens thisweekend at TheBrooklyn Museum.Shown here, detailfrom the GraniteSphinx of KingTaharqo.Book B eat B y U . n i v i iThe writer of this column has gotten to a point where he would positively relish imprisonment in a Chinese fortune cookie factory. No, no, he hasn%u2019t grown a strange new kink (or at least, not that one); it%u2019s just that he%u2019s been in Rochester for five weeks and craves a little action. A little action, you say? Ho ho, what a joke. Listen, the only reason your correspondent suspects he isn%u2019t dead is because he still has to go to the bathroom. Rochester in the summertime isn%u2019t exactly Sheepshead Bay in the offseason. Rochester in the summertime is a parking lot with no cars in it.Oh, I keep rrtyself busy here in my sealed room. My chief occupations are as follow s: a) worrying about why the fourth chapter of my novel appears to have been written by John Barth, and attempting to do something about same, b) living in fear that my air conditioner will begin playing the signature tune from %u201c Star Wars%u201d again, c ' trying to teach a triple-digit English course to a bunch of morons who appear to believe that Richard Henry Dana is a deceased movie actor whose last name was Andrews, d) wandering how much Nehi cola it will take to bring on a second infection of the p a n d a s, e) pondering what a godsend the invention of the%u00ab A , - A l, r in r t n i c t r t l V io c n r n v p r v t o * ^ %u2019 %u201c 'O i ------ ---- %u00abrtelevision script writers, who would otherwise be forced to concoct dialogue and plot, f) trying to figure out what there is about my bed that produces long gray streaks in my pajamas, g) saving up quarters for the washingmachine in the basement, h) making up dumb lists.Even Queens has begun to look good.You want jokps, Davis? I%u2019ll give you jokes. You hear the one about how the Polish government plans to land the first man on the sun? Wait, wait, that ain%u2019t the punch line. The thing is, they figured it out, and they%u2019re going to do it at night. Yes, it has come to that. Polish jokes.So here I sit in my sealed room, hormones ablaze (much good it will do them) and mind turning to. pablum. I wish I were a problem worthy of the talents of Dr. Gideonor somewhere, and I am the Big Vacuum. Oh, tell me the news of the Apple. Is Weich%u2019s Locksmith still there? Do the pigeons still coo up on Remsen, can you buy an Orange Julius on Eighth? Do the garbage men still call thrice weekly, is ttte mayor still bald as an egg? Does Pepsi still skywrite on Sunday, is Abington Square still a dump? Oh tell me the news of the Apple, this lump in my throat%u2019s just a lump.Gak. Boss, boss, I know this was supposed to be about mystery novels, but let me ask you this: does Richard Nixon do deferential%u2018So here I sit in mv sealedroom, horomones ablaze andmind turninq to pablum. . . %u2019Fell, but there is no great mystery about how I came to be here, I came to be here because I work here, is how I came to be here, and there is no place to go because it is Rochester, which is no place to go by definition, (i.e. Rochester. NY.n.l. a city on Lake Ontario. 2. a place where there is no place to go.)So damn me for a snob and a churl, go ahead and tell me that I don%u2019t know how to make my own fun; you%u2019re probably on Nantucketcalculus? (H asn%u2019t that guy on Columbia Heights cancelled his subscription yet? Listen, I know what was agreed, but I%u2019m getting a little tired of working a reference to Old Nick into every single column I write. I mean, maybe one of these days I%u2019ll feel like doing a piece on the Unified Field Theory, and how the cryeye do you expect me to work Poor Richard into that, let me ask you. Maybe we could just pretend I was writing about Ridnrd Nivon every other week,what do you say? Please?)Don%u2019t get me wrong. T've Deen reading the mystery novels, really I have. I%u2019ve read Hooky Gets the Wooden Spoon and The Great Impersonation and Wylder%u2019s Hand and Clues of the Caribees, and if I%u2019m still sane%u2014an arguable proposition at the best of timesthat%u2019s why; in a place where the big thrill on Saturday is riding the escalators in the Xerox Building, even the prose of E. Phillips Oppenheim looks good. 1 have even had an insight.Yes, I know how that sounds and doubtless the boys over on the drama desk are holding their sides with merriment, but extrem e situations sometimes call forth extreme reactions, and this is one. It is possible that my circumstances (or utter lack of same) have played some role in this, but I am awash in the conviction that the principal reason we read mystery stories is because the furniture is more interesting. The hell with the puzzle; the puzzle is the detective%u2019s job, not mine, and I am reasonably Certain that I%u2019m not going to get to the end of, say, Wylder%u2019s Hand only to find everybody standing around in a blue funk. (%u201c I don%u2019t know who did it. Do you know who did i . Lord Chelmsford?%u201d %u201c Beats me.%u201d %u201c Let%u2019s go play billiards.%u201d %u201c Yes, let%u2019s,%u201d )Sherlock Holmes was doubtless perfectly correct when he said that the most baffling crime was the crim e with no distinguishing features%u2014the sort of crime that might occur, for example, in the kind of room I am currently occupying%u2014but who needs it? No, we must have our Persian slipperstuffed with tobacco or Oppenheim%u2019s great country homes or LeFanu%u2019s sinister portrait galleries%u2014anything to take our mind off the fact that the bathroom in this place is tiled in genuine Nausealite and the ceiling of the bed-sitting room is sprayed with Featureless Paranoia. In a room that inspires dreams so dull that I wake up out of sheer boredom, I have absolutely no desire to read a thriller whose accessories were selected from the Green Stamp catalogue; if I did, I might start sounding like Russell Baker.No sir, when Professor Poggioli puts ashore at Cap Hatien, I expect rattan chairs and bamboo couches, and the seedier the better. Your eccentric detective is all right in his place, but I want that place set for tea. Truth lo tell, murders are rather tedious, ordinary things%u2014 when was the last time a murder was auctioned off at SouthebyPark Bernet%u2014but a Louis Quinzo settee is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, the more so since 1 will probably never own one, especially at these rates. Give me a mystery, yes, but give me Cecil Beaton, too.When the big event of your day is breaking the strip of paper on the toilet bowl, that%u2019s something.Laurence .Meynell. Hooky Gets the Wooden Spoon. Stein & Day. $7.95. 192pp.E. P hillips U p p en h elm . The G reat Impersonation. Dover. $3.00.210pp.J. Sheridan LeFanu. W ylder%u2019 s Hand. Dover. $4.50. 387pp.T. S. Stribling. Clues of the Caribees. Dover. $3.50. 314pp.'w p iw iw w 4JO, in r o , m c r n C S i i X , r o j j v l ?