THEATER / SNEAK PEEK : CELEBRATION TAKES ON IRISH AIRE AT THE TAPER.

Irish eyes will be misting, and no doubt smiling too, on Monday night at the Mark Taper Forum.

There's been a greenish tint to the Taper for several weeks now, as the theater has been presenting Brian Friel's ultra-Celtic drama ``Molly Sweeney.'' The production wraps up next week, and the Taper is sending it out with a celebrity-studded tribute to Mother Erin.

Anjelica Huston, Gregory Peck, Gabriel Byrne and Fionnula Flanagan will take part in ``And Wisdom Is a Butterfly - A Celebration of Irish Poetry, Prose and Song'' at 8 p.m. Expect to hear some trilling excerpts of writers such as Seamus Heaney, Thomas Kinsella and Flann O'Brien along with the music of Celtic singer Noirin Ni Riain, who'll be joining the festivities.

Though the evening is not a benefit, it's being held in support of Project Children, which for the past 21 years has provided summer holidays in the United States for more than 11,000 Protestant and Catholic children from Northern Ireland; and Amnesty International, the human rights group.

The Taper is located at 135 N. Grand Ave., at the Music Center of Los Angeles County. Tickets are $30. Call [phone].

Naughty but knife: They lunch. They brunch. They take a meeting and green-light a movie.

They're fun. They're fabulous. And they're out to get you.

They're ``Backstabbers,'' a rogue's gallery of movers, shakers, poseurs and fakers in Hugh Palmer's poisoned valentine to show biz. When this Hollywood insiders' satire was produced in New York four years ago as ``Nice Talk,'' the New York Times used descriptive terms like ``high-octane comedy'' and ``terribly, angrily funny.''

A new production at the Improvisation, 8162 Melrose Ave., is trying to live up to those accolades, with a bicoastal cast under Palmer's direction. Running through Dec. 18, the show plays at 8 p.m. Wednesdays. Tickets are $8. For reservations, call [phone].

Showboatin': With ``Show Boat'' anchored at the Ahmanson Theatre, now is as good a time as any to revisit the career of composer Jerome Kern, whose greatest hits could serve as the official jukebox for the era of knock-your-socks-off showmanship.

For the next two weekends, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be screening Hollywood adaptations of landmark Kern musicals, starting tonight with ``Till the Clouds Roll By'' (1946) and continuing Saturday with the 1936 (and best) version of ``Show Boat,'' starring Irene Dunne and Paul Robeson, and ``Sweet Adeline'' (1935), starring Dunne and Donald Woods.

On Dec. 20, LACMA will screen a newly restored version of ``Sally'' (1931), the lavish spectacle of a hotel dishwasher turned star, featuring Flo Ziegfeld's pillow talk-mate, Marilyn Miller, and ``The Cat and the Fiddle'' (1934), with Jeannette MacDonald and Ramon Navarro. Coming Dec. 21: ``Swing Time'' (1936), a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers comedy, and ``Lovely to Look At'' (1952), featuring the Kern classic ``Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.''

All screenings take place at 7:30 p.m. at LACMA's Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Blvd.

Tickets are $6 general admission; $4 for museum members, AFI members and students with valid ID. For tickets, call [phone].

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Photo

Photo: Anjelica Huston

Celebrating Irish poetry