Edition: U.S. / Global   Published: December 6, 1987  THE 1919
GERMAN FILM CLASSIC ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari'' has been a
favorite of Film 101 courses for a variety of reasons. Although
its validity as a harbinger of the moral climate that permitted
Hitler's rise to power has been debated, its significance for
the cinema as a bold stylistic departure into a realm of fantasy
and expression has remained indisputable. As originally
conceived by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, and directed for the
silent screen by Robert Weine, the macabre story focused on an
asylum director named Caligari who hypnotically controls Cesare,
a side-show somnambulist, to commit murders. In presenting their
idea for the film, the creators were determined that it should
be photographed in an innovative way, employing avant-garde
techniques of expressionism then in vogue on the German stage.
Susan Mosakowski's new stage version of ''The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari,'' which opened last Wednesday at the La Mama Annex, is
-esthetically spea