`The Staircase': An Excellent Film For Easter

------------------------------- "The Staircase," "Kraft Premier Movie," 9 p.m. Sunday, KIRO-TV. ------------------------------- Appropriate for Easter Sunday, CBS' TV movie, "The Staircase" is a docudrama of a different stripe: It dramatizes the creation of the famous "Miraculous Staircase" in Santa Fe's Loretto Chapel.

In the 1870s a small chapel, based on the dimensions of the famed St. Chapelle in Paris, was being constructed for the Sisters of Loretto, an order that had come from Kentucky to the raggedy outpost of Santa Fe in 1852. But when the chapel was nearly completed the builder realized he had made no provision to reach the choir loft from the main floor. And because of the dimensions of the chapel, there was not room to build conventional stairs.

The sisters decided to make a novena to St. Joseph, asking for a solution. And on the last day of the novena, a gray-haired man, riding a donkey, appeared out of nowhere and asked to build the staircase. The legend is that he had no tools other than a saw, a T-square and a hammer - yet in a period of a few months he constructed a spiral staircase, held together with pegs, without a center support, resting on the floor on the bottom and the loft at the top.

When he was finished, he disappeared as quickly as he had arrived and architects and engineers have since pondered how he could have done it. Even the wood is unidentifiable. Since then the "Miraculous Staircase" has become a Santa Fe tourist attraction (and has also been featured on "Unsolved Mysteries.")

Scripter Christopher Lofton has used the legend as the basis for a movie, ably directed by Karen Arthur who astutely cast the film with the excellent Barbara Hershey playing Mother Madalyn, the mother superior of the order; Diane Ladd as her confidante, Sister Margaret, and William Petersen as the mysterious carpenter.

Lofton has imagined all kinds of skulduggery surrounding the building of the staircase, involving the local architect, played by Justin Louis, and the local contractor, played by David Clennon (in an interesting performance). He's given Mother Madalyn a fatal disease and has also woven in some PC comments about how Mexicans and Indians were treated at the time, all of it designed to flesh out the central story, not always germane but on the whole not too bothersome.

The result is an involving family movie that should score strongly with the "Touched by an Angel"' audience.

Production designer Fred Harpman was called upon to re-create the "miraculous staircase" for the film, which he did by studying the original and applying modern principles of engineering to the project.

He claims it took more than half a dozen master carpenters working full time to create the copy - and they were able to use power tools, precut wood, screws, staples and even nails. But even though the builders for the film were able to figure out how it could be replicated, they still don't understand how one man, with almost no tools, could have built the original.

TNT'S `LINCOLN' PACKED WITH DRAMA ------------------------------- "The Day Lincoln Was Shot" 5, 7 and 9 p.m., Sunday, (also Tuesday and Saturday and April 19, 21 and 26), TNT. -------------------------------

Jim Bishop's famous minute-by-minute account of the last day of President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 provides striking material for this docudrama, adapted and directed by John Gray.

Rob Morrow makes a suitably conniving John Wilkes Booth, the famous actor who shot President Lincoln, while Lance Henriksen ("Millennium") makes a dour and sometimes expressionless Lincoln. The best performance is that given by Donna Murphy as Mary Lincoln.

Using the Bishop formula, Gray's script jumps back and forth between Lincoln's activities as the Civil War ended and Booth's bitterness because the South he knew and loved has been defeated, which led him to think of revenge upon the man he called "a dictator."

Even though we know too well the ending of this film, Gray and his cast manage to bring a good sense of suspense to the proceedings.

"TIGER WOODS STORY' PROVES ENTERTAINING ------------------------------- "The Tiger Woods Story" 8 p.m. Sunday, (also Saturday and April 18), Showtime. -------------------------------

It's only been a year since 21-year-old Tiger Woods won the Masters Golf Tournament to become the sports world's newest hero - and already he's the subject of a TV movie.

While Showtime warns that the docudrama is "not endorsed by Tiger Woods, any members of the Woods family, Nike or the PGA," still "The Tiger Woods Story" turns out to be a fairly engrossing, if standard, "bio-pic," as Hollywood describes movies like this.

One of the appealing qualities of the young golfer is evidently a strong bond with his parents, and the movie, written by Takashi Bufford, emphasizes that. The script also indicates that young Woods, with an African-American father and a Thai mother, has suffered his share of prejudice. How he has learned to cope with that, as well as the monumental demands of instant celebrity, make the movie inspirational as well as informative.

Levar Burton directed the film, which has solid performances by Keith David as the elder Woods, Freda Foh Shen as his mother. Tiger is played by T.J. Hall as a small child, Gary Le'Roi Gray from 9 to 13 while Khalil Kain plays the grown-up Tiger. Most of the film takes place off the golf courses, but while Showtime doesn't admit it, the golfing long shots probably feature Tiger himself.

Even if you couldn't care less about golf, "The Tiger Woods Story" is an entertaining TV movie.