Critics' Choice

TELEVISION

THE SUMMER OLYMPICS (NBC). A two-hour preview show on Sept. 15 (9 p.m. EDT) sets the stage; then let the TV blitz begin.

THE THEBAN PLAYS (PBS, Sept. 16, 23, 30, 9 p.m. on most stations). Sophocles' tragic Oedipus trilogy gets world-class treatment in a BBC production starring Anthony Quayle and Claire Bloom.

ENCYCLOPEDIA (HBO, debuting Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m. EDT). Children's Television Workshop, creator of Sesame Street, takes youngsters through the encyclopedia | in songs and sketches. First episode: from alligators to Attila.

THEATER

HAMLET. Zeljko Ivanek, one of the nation's ablest young performers, scales the Everest of acting in a richly Freudian production at Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater.

80 DAYS. Director Des McAnuff (Big River) and Composer Ray Davies of the Kinks send Phileas Fogg around the world again in a musical at California's La Jolla Playhouse.

MUSIC

STEVE EARLE: COPPERHEAD ROAD (Uni). Songs of sorrow and defiance: a rock- inflected, country-based album that takes long chances with big themes, from the ghosts of Viet Nam to romantic burnout, and does them proud.

NIXON IN CHINA (Nonesuch). A waltz across the Great Wall with Dick, Pat, Henry, Mao and the missus: last year's best new opera is this year's best new opera recording.

CHESS (RCA Victor). You missed the show, now buy the record: not a rock musical at all, but the most eclectic score of the '80s and the hottest night in Bangkok since Yul Brynner met Deborah Kerr.

CONCERTS

RUNNING ON EMPTY. The gifted son of two '60s radicals must choose between his family and himself, without betraying either. Sidney Lumet's film bathes in political cliches and then comes clean. River Phoenix is a sensitive sensation.

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Now that ticket lines are replacing picket lines, Martin Scorsese's terrific film can be appreciated as a passionate, full-bodied meditation on Jesus' humanity.

MARRIED TO THE MOB. The Mafia takes a ribbing in Jonathan Demme's hip jape. Michelle Pfeiffer (swoon!) is a Mob widow on the lam, and Dean Stockwell is tops as a henpecked gang lord.

BOOKS

BREATHING LESSONS by Anne Tyler (Knopf; $18.95). With her customary firm but gentle touch and ear for nuance, the author weaves a tale depicting the quotidian mysteries of marriage and staying together.

WHEAT THAT SPRINGETH GREEN by J.F. Powers (Knopf; $18.95). Father Joe Hackett, assigned in the late 1960s to a comfortable suburban parish, struggles to keep his mind on eternity while coping with the nigglings of bureaucracy.

LIBRA by Don DeLillo (Viking; $19.95). Another conspiracy theory about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, this one fictional, mingling real people -- like Lee Harvey Oswald -- with an imaginary cabal of disgruntled CIA types.