NY's Untitled Theatre Co. #61 will open the new year with two rarely performed works by famed poet T.S. Eliot, collectively entitled This is the Way the World Ends: T.S. Eliot's Sweeney Agonistes & The Rock, playing at the Washington Square United Methodist Church, Jan. 7-30, 1999.

The setting for Sweeney Agonistes , written in 1926, is a party hosted by Doris and Dusty in London in the 1920s. Doris dreams of weddings -- a premonition of her own death -- and becomes uneasy when one of her suitors by the name of Sweeney tells a disturbing story about a murder. Untitled Theatre Co's artistic director, Edward Einhorn helms the production, which incorporates three Eliot poems: "Sweeney Erect," "Sweeney Among the Nightingales," and "Doris' Dream Songs."

The Rock, on the other hand, takes Eliot's Christian pageant and mixes it with contemporary theatre theory, creating a world where the secular may itself be sacred and where the Voice of Heaven speaks not only through classical arias, but also through 1960s garage rock.

This is the Way the World Ends will be presented Jan. 7 - 30, at the Washington Square United Methodist Church. For tickets ($12) or more information, call (212) 387-2043.

-- By Sean McGrath