NET Playhouse

A gambler who fled to America to escape a murder charge returns to England in search of the real killer.

"The Victorians: The Ticket-of-Leave Man," a 19th-century detective story. Released from prison, a young man sets out to find the crook who framed him.

A wealthy businessman persuades a penniless young aristocrat to introduce his son into society.

An 80-year-old nobleman competes with his son for the hand of a young heiress. This comedy by Dion Boucicault was first produced in 1841.

The first of an eight-part series focusing on life in England during the 1800's. Part 1: A young farmer and his wife face eviction unless they find a way to pay their rent.

A Concert on Sacred Music by Duke Ellington, from the Grace Cathedral, seat of the Episcopal Archdiocese of San Francisco.

"Ballet Gala" features principal dancers from Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, London's Royal Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet performing excerpts from Swan Lake, Don Quixote and Romeo and Juliet.

This dramatization of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's master novel explores the conflicting feelings of guilt and superiority in a student who murders two old women and then tries to justify his crime.

A courtroom drama based on the court-martial of 10 HMS Bounty mutineers. The 10 seamen on trial all claim to have taken no part in the mutiny, but they may still be punished: The naval regulations of 1792 state that sailors who do not try to prevent a mutiny share equal guilt with active mutineers. Only one of two verdicts can be handed down: acquit or hang.

An orphaned refugee causes unforeseen problems when he comes to live with his bachelor uncle in America. Produced by WQED, Pittsburgh.

Britain's Sadler's Wells Opera Company performs Offenbach's popular, light opera. According to Greek myth, the poet Orpheus played beautiful music and loved his wife Eurydice so much that. when she died, he went into the infernal regions to reclaim her life. In Offenbach's satiric treatment of the legend, Orpheus is such a bore and his music is so wretched that Eurydice is glad to go to hell. Orpheus, on the other hand, is equally happy to be rid of her.

"Sponono," by South African author Alan Paton, incorporates native songs and dances into its narrative-drama form. The story is about a black delinquent's clash with his white reformatory principal.

A presentation of George Bernard Shaw's "Misalliance," a farce about love and the misunderstandings between family members. The visitors at the country home of a manufacturer find their lives changed by the sudden appearance of an outspoken Polish aviatrix.

A Japanese film that follows the experiences of a psychiatrist who accidentally revives his buried memory of a horrible wartime experience.

A poetic drama that explores the paradoxes of the master-slave relationship.

Playwright-actor-director Peter Ustinov presents a satiric "improvisation on musical themes" with pianist Anthony Hopkins, and British satirists Dudley Moore and Bernard Keefe. Ustinov caricatures typical Russian, American, German and English composers with pen and piano, singing along with the wild musical themes he invents for each composer

This BBC documentary-drama re-creates the Battle of Culloden (1746)-- the last battle fought on British soil. The final attempt to restore the house of Stuart to the throne of Scotland, England and Ireland culminated in the meeting (at Culloden) of an English army and the Highlander force, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie.

In 16th-century Spain, pressure is brought on Don Alvaro Dabo to take part in the conquest of the West Indies-but Don Alvaro, an anti-colonialist and religious mystic, resists all arguments. Adapted from the play by contemporary French novelist-playwright Henri de Montherlant.

Singer-actress Lotte Lenya offers a tribute to her late composer husband.

In 1890s London, two friends use the same pseudonym ("Ernest") for their on-the-sly activities. Hilarity ensues.

A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm

Roman Polanski directed this study of a clash between generations. On a weekend outing, two men find themselves pitted against each other in a tense psychological rivalry for the affections of the older man's wife.

Actors Fritz Weaver and Uta Hagen join the folk-singing Tarriers and Carolyn Hester for this adaptation of "The World of Carl Sandburg," which opened on Broadway in 1960. Sandburg, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, is a poet, historian, novelist and folklorist. Carolyn Hester and the Tarriers perform numbers from Sandburg's "The American Songbag,

The off-Broadway La Mama Experimental Theater Club, founded by Ellen Stewart presents three avant-garde works. The plays: 1. "Pavane," by Jean-Claude van Itallie, examines rituals of modern society. 2. "Fourteen Hundred Thousand," by Sam Shepard, involves a young couple and their in-laws. 3. "The Recluse," by Paul Foster, focuses on a demented old lady in an abandoned hospital.

William Shakespeare's comic-story of mistaken identity follows the misadventures of two sets of long-lost twins is presented by Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company. Produced by the BBC.

"The Amorous Flea," is a musical-comedy based on Molière's "School for Wives." The play follows the misadventures of an old man who has raised a young girl, in total ignorance of the ways of the world, so that she will make him a perfect wife. Adapted from the 1964 off-Broadway hit.

Presented in French with English subtitles, The Theatre de la Mandragore Troupe wore masks and performed the Plautus play about a miser obsessed with his gold.

"The Play of Daniel." Filmed at the Cloisters, NYC's Museum of Medieval Art, this 12th-century play dramatizes episodes in the life of the Old Testament hero Daniel. An English narrative by poet W. H. Auden supplements the original Latin and Old French text performed by the New York Pro Musica and the boys choir of New York City's Church of the Transfiguration.

A modern folklore tale about a highly imaginative, fantasy-bound youth and his search for a troll.

Christopher Fry's verse drama of four prisoners in an imaginary war.

A Norwegian doctor discovers that the source of the town's medicinal waters has become poisonous.

"Victoria Regina: Autumn," third of a four-part adaption of Lawrence Housman's Broadway hit about the life of England's Queen Victoria. In this episode: Prime Minister Disraeli clashes with the Queen.

"Victoria Regina: Summer," second of four-part adaptation of Lawrence Hous mans' Broadway hit about the life of England's Queen Victoria. Tonight: Prince Albert faces the problem of being married to a reigning monarch.

The first hour of this four-part adaptation of Laurence Housman's drama focuses on Queen Victoria's accession to the throne and her conflict with Lord Melbourne, her Prime Minister and close friend. Melbourne brings up the question of marriage-but the Queen rejects his list of suitable bridegroom

A comedy-fantasy by Maxwell Anderson, follows the adventures of an inventor who creates a time-machine enabling him to live his life over again.

Dustin Hoffman stars in Ronald Ribman's critically acclaimed off-Broadway drama and 1965 Obie Award for best play of the season. The story of a kind and good-hearted young landowner in 19th century Russia who, desperate for love and acceptance, sets out to find both, only to discover that if he had never lived at all it would have made no difference to anyone.

A production of Tennessee Williams's "Ten Blocks on the Camino Real," a one-act play upon which his full-length play, "Camino Real" was based. This allegorical drama is set in the plaza of a Latin American town, a sinister purgatory where laughing street cleaners cart away the dead. Kilroy, a young American ex-boxer with a failing heart, arrives in this nightmarish place.

In a totalitarian future society, Winston Smith, whose daily work is re-writing history, tries to rebel by falling in love.

Henry, a callow English youth, is rejected by Federika, the older and more sophisticated woman he has fallen in love with. She says, in effect, come back when you've grown up. Wounded but still hopeful, Henry decides to grow up by experiencing Europe, and he embarks on a hitchhiker's journey across the Continent in a determined quest for manhood

Yorky is considered a troublemaker by the building site manager. When they sack him a strike is called but lost after the police intervene. He wants nationalise the building industry but forced to go the lump - tax free and off the books.

A dramatization of Lady Murasaki's 11th-century saga. The novel etches the life of Prince Genji against the background of a sophisticated but decaying Imperial Court. Part 1 follows Genji through a love affair with his father's concubine.

William Shakespeare's timeless tragedy about political treachery and assassination is presented as part of the "Biography" series,

Ludwig Van Beethoven was considered an eccentric undisciplined musician in his youth. This drama centers on his struggle for recognition between the ages of 22 and 35,. the period when he began a romance that his career destroyed; came to terms with his loneliness and advancing deafness; and, finally won acclaim as a genius

George Eliot whose Victorian novels of social comment include "Silas Mar-ner" and "The Mill on the Floss." Is the subject of this drama, which focuses on the years of frustration in her late 20s and early 30s. Turning point in her life: literary critic George Henry Lewes becomes her common-law husband and persuades her to write fiction.

Helen Hayes recreates some of her most famous stage roles, such as Mary Stuart in "Mary of Scotland", Queen Victoria in "Victoria Regina", Nora Melody in "A Touch of the Poet" and Grandma in "The American Dream".

A poet-astronaut is shot through an area of space called the Chronosynclastic Infundibulum. He is duplicated into infinite copies of himself, each of whom finds himself in a bizarre situations on a different world. (These scenarios are all derived from the novels and short stories of 'Kurt Vonnegut Jr.', including Cat's Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey House, 'Harrison Bergeron', and 'Happy Birthday, Wanda June'.