It sounds like pure soap opera: A woman on the verge of marriage to one man is pursued by another, while some members of her family feel the impending nuptials will be a catastrophe.

But what makes ABC's "The Wedding" different from a standard-life plot on "Melrose Place" or "Beverly Hills, 90210" is that most of the characters are African American. And the issues that divide them to the brink on an interracial marriage in 1953 fall not only along traditional black-and-white fault lines, but also along the less-seldom discussed stratification between dark-skinned and light-skinned blacks.

Halle Berry, who stars in the drama, believes "The Wedding' has universal appeal. "Just change the names and the faces and anyone will be able to relate to it as well," says the actress, whose credits include "The Flintstones" and "Losing Isaiah."

"It's not just a race thing, but a class thing," agrees director Charles Burnett ("Nightjohn"). "That's where the universal elements fit in. Those were the attitudes and themes we were focusing on." Set in an exclusive African American family who is defying convention by planning to marry Mead (Eric Thal), a struggling, white jazz musician.

Lynn Whitfield portrays Shelby's mother, Corinne, an undemonstative woman who feels her daughter is marrying beneath her social standards. A few years earlier, her older daughter, Liz (Cynda Williams), eloped with a man. Corinne made it clear that the too-dark, working class parents of her fiance (Richard Brooks) would not be welcome to the wedding.

One person who is eager Shelby marry a white man is her great-grandmother (Shirley Knight), the 98-year-old Southern white matriarch of the family. Her daughter had married a former slave from her father's plantation; now Gram hopes each generation of the family will be lighter than the next.

Carl Lumbly also stars as Lute, a dark-skinned African American considered an outsider by the Martha Vineyard's community but nonetheless has his sights set on wooing Shelby away from her fiance.

Berry, who played the title role of a mixed-race slave in the miniseries "Queen," says she got involved in the project after appearing on Winfrey's talk show.

"She said she would love for me to play Shelby and would I read the book?," Berry recalls. "After I read the book I was inspired. I sure got educated. I didn't learn about these people in history class, and I felt immediately (that) this would be a great educational tool for me to like myself...[It was also a chance] to understand my heritage a little bit better."

Berry says coming from an interracial family herself-- her mother is white, her father black--gave her a "certain sensitivity" to the issues in the drama. "I just know certain things about being in this situation," she says.

But my experience was so different than Queen's or Shelby's, she adds. "I grew up with a very liberal, open-minded mother who said 'Bring home whoever you want.' But the struggle to fit in and to know my own identity --that is very much what I went through in my life. Shelby was interracial and kids didn't understand--'Why is your mommy white and you're not?'-- but I don't think it was any more traumatic than the kid with a problem. Mine was just different."

The color issues depicted in the film still exists in the African American community today, says director Burnett, who is black. "I still think it is as bad," he says. "I know in Atlanta and places like it, it's still a phenomenon. But with 'Black is Beautiful' in the '60's and the 70's, that helped erode a lot of that stuff. But it still exists. It is sort of ingrained."

"It premeates the culture in a strange way," adds Knight, who finds it fascinating to play the only white member of the family.

"I remember years ago, Muhammad Ali was on television and he was saying there is something about light and dark--that we associate darkness as something bad and lightness as something good. He said we witness things like (the fact that) dark cake is devil's food cake and white cake is called angel's food cake. I found that fascinating.

Both Berry and Burnett believe there are no villains in the picture and never looked at it in terms of good and bad guys," Burnett explained he looked at it in terms of people with their own dilemmas and problems who are trying to work out. We were trying to make these people as humanly possible and as well-rounded and fully dimensional."

The matriarch character, Berry explains, is "a product of her environment and her time. That's all that it is."

"She didn't know any better," adds Knight. "And she sort of renews herself at the end."

With "The Wedding," Burnett says, "I tried to alter people's awareness of a black family. This is a family and they are not on drugs or committing crimes. It's a different type of tension and drama."

"Ophrah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding airs Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m. on ABC.