STAGE

The Bacchae--A triumph for the Charles Playhouse and all concerned. Director Timothy S. Mayer has updated Euripides' play in translation and costumes, invested it with modern music, and staged it almost vertically. The devices are amazingly consistent with one another, also with the interpretation, and most of all with the play. The cast is fine. At the CHARLES, 76 Warrenton (542-3325).

Benito Cerino--Directors David Wheeler and Frank Cassidy have constructed Robert Lowell's penetration of an American mind into a simple tragedy of racism. An awkward flat production. At the THEATRE COMPANY OF BOSTON 136 Mass. Ave. (426-6609). Ends Sunday.

The Measures Taken--Brecht. At the HARVARD EPWORTH CHURCH, 1555 Mass. Ave. (491-9579).

Misalliance--In which a man drops out of the sky, by Shaw. At EMERSON COLLEGE, 130 Beacon (262-2010 ext. 240).

Paradise Now--The Living Theatre's house special, in which the actors are sometimes called upon to mingle with the audience. At KRESGE AUDITORIUM, M.I.T., tonight. Sold out.

The Proposition--Local satirical revue. At 241 Hampshire St., Inman Square, Cambridge.

Tambourines to Glory--The Langston Hughes play, done by the Negro Repertory Theatre of Boston. At NEW ENGLAND LIFE HALL (442-0955).

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown--Which somehow works. At the WILBUR (426-9366).

The Zoo Story & Dutchman--Edward Albee & Leroi Jones. At the ATMA, 496 Tremont (338-9791).

SCREEN

Barbarella--Roger Vadim's very public salute to Jane Fonda; more or less what you'd expect. At the CIRCLE, Cleveland Circle, Brookline (566-4040).

Belle de Jour--Luis Bunuel in high gear, with Catherine Deneuve. At the WEST END North Station (523-4050).

The Bride Wore Black--Truffaut's highly symmetrical murder mystery, with quotations from Hitchcock. A splendid, unnerving movie, probably in badly dubbed version. At the SYMPHONY I, 262 Huntington (262-8820).

Camelot--An overblown adaptation of the Lerner & Lowe musical, with Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave. But swell music. At the FRESH POND in Fresh Pond, Cambridge (547-8800).