August 7, 1983

Theater in America used to mean Broadway. The great playwrights wrote for Broadway and Broadway was their showcase, the place where things began. All that has changed. Partly, economics have made it practically unthinkable for a straight play to originate on Broadway. But if Broadway is no longer synonymous with the theater in America, that is largely because of the regional theater movement that took root in this country over the last 25 years. That movement has created opportunities for theater artists to live and work in such cities as Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, Louisville and Seattle, instead of having to migrate to New York to be where the action is. It has nurtured writers as diverse as Sam Shepard and Beth Henley, David Mamet and Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman and Charles Fuller. Many of the plays that go to Broadway have originated in one of these regional theaters, and an entire repertory of American drama of merit has sprung up from all over the country, which has made it possible for a play to have a life without ever treading the Great White Way.

It is a poignant irony that Werner Rainer Fassbinder's ''Berlin Alexanderplatz,'' which has been acclaimed by some critics as a masterwork, is the tale of a man who struggles to be honest and upright - a lusty struggle that brings him women, friendship, vitality - but who finally succumbs, first to an earthly satan and then to the banality of a petty job polishing rich men's limousines. Throughout his short, frenzied and astonishingly prolific life, the Wunderkind of the postwar German film was mesmerized by the figure of Franz Biberkopf, the proletarian protagonist of Alfred D"oblin's ''Berlin Alexanderplatz,'' a novel that enjoys a place in modern German letters akin to Joyce's ''Ulysses.'' Beginning with the director's earliest work, Biberkopf is a Fassbinder leitmotif. A 1969 film entitled ''Love is Colder Than Death'' is a cameo ''Berlin Alexanderplatz,'' in which Fassbinder himself plays an ex-convict named Franz who resists the efforts of the syndicate to involve him again in crime. Explicitly or otherwise, this theme of life and love as a power struggle runs through his films, culminating in the 15 1/2 hour ''Alexanderplatz,'' which first appeared on West German television in serial form in 1980. It will have its New York theater premiere in five installments at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema starting Wednesday Aug. 10 and ending Sept. 6.

BACK in November 1979, armed Iranian students stormed the gates of the United States Embassy in Teheran and took 62 Americans - and America - hostage. While the human drama grabbed most of the headlines, it quickly became clear that more than political fortunes were dashed in the upheaval. The economic warfare that ensued also dealt a devasting blow to many United States banks and businesses that had billions of dollars invested there. Since Iran, other crises abroad - from the political turmoil in El Salvador to the economic instability of Brazil - have further shaken the corporate confidence of many American multinationals. ''You can't be complacent about investments anywhere,'' said Robert O. Anderson, the chief executive officer of the Atlantic Richfield Company. ''Mexico is the latest case in point. Two or three years ago it looked like a sure financial success, but now it's just the opposite.''

Only three years ago ranchers grazed more than 40,000 sheep on the lush fields amid the sagebrush hills along the Snake River. Now there are fewer than half that number of sheep here. Five of the county's major sheep ranchers have sold out, in some cases replacing their flocks with cattle herds. At least one other operator has filed for bankruptcy. ''We like to say that sheepherding is the second oldest profession in the world,'' said John Faulkner, a third- generation sheep rancher here whose flock of 12,000 is the largest in the state. ''But the way things are going, I don't know if the industry can survive, at least not the way we have traditionally known it in the Western range states.''

HOMEOWNERS who have been paying off a mortgage for 15 years or more often reach the point where they would like to wipe out the debt entirely. Those facing retirement seek the comfort of knowing that the roof over their heads is free and clear, and that nobody can take it away from them as long as they can pay taxes and maintenance. ''It's an easier way for many of these people to live,'' said Salvatore Randazzo, vice president of mortgage servicing at the Williamsburgh Savings Bank. In the past, tax and personal-finance advisers have cautioned borrowers against taking this step. That old loan, they have argued, probably carries a rate of interest far below anything they could ever get again.