May 18, 1998

Ben Brantley reviews Mr Peters' Connections, play written by Arthur Miller and directed by Garry Hynes at Signature Theater; photo of Peter Falk and Kris Carr (M)

Ersatz Blues Brothers were carried down this city's main boulevard yesterday by a Volvo, as if more proof were needed that the Cannes International Film Festival is not quite itself this year. John Travolta's bodyguard was one of the luminaries mentioned in accounts of Wednesday night's opening ceremony, which featured ''Primary Colors.'' Filmmakers giving interviews are liable to be asked less about mise en scene than about the death of Frank Sinatra. On the 30th anniversary of the student uprising that shut down this festival, a poster vendor along the Croisette is selling 22 different portraits of Leonardo DiCaprio, 5 of the Simpsons, 3 of the Spice Girls, 2 of Bob Marley, 1 of Che Guevara and 1 of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Last year's A-list event marked the festival's 50th anniversary; this time, it's officially the Year of the Producer. But things can happen fast at Cannes, and it's only the movie-star handprints outside the Palais des Festivals that are fixed in cement. (Only a year ago, Mr. DiCaprio actually strolled from the Palais to a nearby hotel without touching off a fuss.) Today the film competition began picking up interest as the event moved past its lackluster start.

Anna Kisselgoff reviews Martha Graham Dance Company performing Appalachian Spring on same stage where it had its premiere in 1944, Coolidge Auditorium of Library of Congress; photo (M)

Special report, Where Fear Lingers, finds fear still pervades Washington Heights section of Manhattan, one of city's most murderous communities, despite dramatic drop in crime; residents remain mistrustful and wary and hundreds are still recovering from trauma of living in war zone, even though only five homicides have been committed thus far in 1998, compared with 119 killings north of 155th Street during corresponding period in 1991; many remain confined behind triple-locked doors and have yet to venture out to feel difference for themselves, in neighborhood where even most upstanding extended families lost relatives to lure of drugs or drug money during past decade; area remains New York region's largest distribution center for narcotics, even though drug trade has been greatly diminished and, for most part, forced indoors; police say drug arrests have yet to peak and unlikely to do so for some time; drop in crime attributed in part to series of prosecutions of violent drug gangs, aggressive police tactics and to establishment of new police precinct in 1994 after long community campaign; charts; photos (L)

New production of Janacek's opera Jenufa will open 22d Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC; benefit for Royal Shakespeare Company and Brooklyn Academy of Music to include highlights from many Shakespeare plays, as well as musical selections and dinner; photo; Tate Gallery Liverpool marks its 10th birthday with celebratory reopening after 18-month, $11.3 million redevelopment of its home on River Mersey; James Levine will lead Metropolitan Opera Orchestra to begin 125th Cincinnati May Festival; photo (M)