Did he pull the piece, one day, from a steamer trunk, dazzling Edward Crane and convincing him, in the esthetic equivalent of instant conversion, that an exhibition of Tibetan art in Newark would fly?

Whatever the merits of "Lettice and Lovage" as a script -and they remain indeterminate in this rendering - Miss Smith's performance is in itself the esthetic equivalent of a one-woman "Importance of Being Earnest."

But as a piece of theater, "A Walk in the Woods" is the esthetic equivalent of Switzerland, and not only because its setting is "a pleasant woods on the outskirts of Geneva."

The works on display are the esthetic equivalent of the self-mutilation practiced by disturbed teen-agers - more pathetic than shocking.

Never has the male of the species brandished his tail feathers with more elegant gusto; never has anyone eclipsed his youthful peers with a more colorful display, only to end his life providing the esthetic equivalent of hat-trimming.

If the McCarter is the esthetic equivalent of a first-class ticket to a wellspring of civilization, Passage represents the eternal struggle of theater professionals to make do while making art.

The style might be called the esthetic equivalent of the Heimlich maneuver.

Other designers of the era relied on similar inventions to provide the esthetic equivalent of a surreptitious subway pinch.

While commendable in theory, Professor Meggs said, that "50" is "the esthetic equivalent of the star bursts on cereal boxes."

For these architects, a full generation younger than those who formulated the post-modern framework, the modern movement is not the esthetic equivalent of a father figure crying out for Oedipal assault.