(Isherwood) * 'DYING CITY' Christopher Shinn's crafty and unsettling play about grief and violence, set in the shadow of the Iraq war.

Together, the two crafty plays defused a potentially volatile ninth inning yesterday afternoon at Shea Stadium, as Franco preserved Bret Saberhagen's one-run lead for a 5-4 Mets victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That "Thumbs" is not itself a crafty play, or even a good one, is a result of such protective, as opposed to meticulous, construction.

A. M. Venne, the referee of the game, suggested Vandy won because of its crafty play, saying the defeat of Texas was due to Vandy's 'head work.'

The game, after all, a whimsical variation of pool dreamed up in 1875 by English Army officers stationed in India, takes its name from a term of derision for a gullible, green cadet, the very sort to be snookered by crafty play.

But unlike Mr. LaBute, whose mean and crafty play sends his characters out into adulthood betrayed and wounded, with lessons under their belts that no one would ever hope to learn, Mr. Aronson provides a lightly absurdist view of the college years that is in the end melancholy and hopeful.

Yet the game was full of crafty plays and colored by big and punishing hits.

Both were crafty plays, the second a back-to-the-net deflection past goalie Tim Cheveldae, on a power play, after a long wrist shot from Ulf Samuelsson near the blue line.

The Galaxy, however, seized a 2-0 advantage on another crafty play by Victorine.