The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 72

OAR Cos Angeles (Times San Diego County Friday, August 14, 1987 Part VI MOVIE REVIEWS STEAMY SUSPENSE AND STEAMY ROMANCE GA EN M-'Mb-. Mi 1 SO' iff 'A Man in Love' Capitalizes on a Backstage Romance One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love any love reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness. Cesare Pavese By MICHAEL WILMINGTON Throughout her career, Diane Ku-rys has been so autobiographicalpartly revealing her childhood in "Entre Nous" and "Peppermint Soda," and her youth in "Cocktail Molotov" that it's tempting to scour her latest film, "A Man in Love" (selected theaters) for possible personal tidbits. Does this steamy, rich backstage romance about movie co-stars and their Roman-Parisian fling make use of any disguised Kurys memoirs? It's hard to imagine how. The movie director here, Dante Pizani (Jean Pigoz-zi), is a man a pudgy enfant terrible of Italian theater.

He doesn't look interested in sex; much of the time he doesn't look too interested in the movie he's making, either. The actors carry the torch instead: Peter Coyote as Steve Elliott, an arrogant American movie star, and Greta Scacchi as Jane Stei-ner a Parisian stage actress. Sparks whoosh up when they meet on a Cinecitta sound stage and an adulterous affair is ignited an affair hidden from Elliot's wife (Jamie Lee Curtis), clucked over by his co-workers and aided by his personal assistant, Michael (Peter Rie-gert). Kurys shifts the viewpoint, sometimes plunging us subjectively into the lovers' embraces, sometimes pulling Please see 'MAN IN Page 6 'No Way Out' Finds a Way to Become a Crackling Thriller By SHEILA BENSON, Times Film Critic Hard to imagine better luck in the film world than the timing of the cracklingly fine thriller "No Way Out" (citywide). Its story? A cover-up within the Pentagon by the secretary of Defense who conducts his own secret investigation stone-walling the FBI and CIA and chooses a handsome, decorated military hero to be its point man and possibly its fall guy.

Only Three Mile Island and "The China Syndrome" have come this close to actual events before, and "No Way Out" seems more eerily congruent, more sinewy and real. One of the hallmarks of director Roger Donaldson is bedrock believability, done with self-effacing technique. In scenes behind paneled offices or at hilariously predictable political receptions, we get a rare sense that this is exactly what the pols say and just how they say it when the civilians are safely out of earshot. Donaldson's other strength as he demonstrated eloquently in his New Zealand-made "Smash Palace" is in the bristling tensions of sexual relationships; his players on that battlefield are gorgeous, Kevin Costner, Sean Young and Gene Hackman. Young is the pivotal character; although she's the mistress of the deeply proprietary Defense secretary (Hackman), she embarks on a steamy love affair with naval hero Costner, based on hot mutual attraction.

(These uninhibited love scenes and attendant nudity and language give the film its rating.) Only afterward does she discover that Costner's new boss at Kevin Costner, left, and Gene Hackman in political thriller "No Way Out." (unrecognized) as Hackman left the crime scene. Now, the story's great, ironic gimmick: Costner must guide the most sophisticated bloodhounds to his own trail. In Donaldson's hands, the action is kept whizzing breathlessly fast enough that you skim over occasional credibility gaps. By underlining the drama, not the melodrama of his story, Hackman, in a beautiful performance, becomes a conscience -wracked man of depth rather than an omnipotent monster. The liaison-turned-love story between Young and Costner is equally fascinating and hell's own sensual.

Each of the smaller roles have been painstakingly cast, particularly Patton's smarmy zealot and George Dzundza, as Please see'NO Page 30 the Pentagon is the secretary of Defense. Precipitously, Hackman commits a murder. Shaken and aghast, he is quite prepared to go to the police, however his right-hand-and-hatchet-man Will Pat-ton, glittery-eyed with zeal, will hear nothing of it. Hackman has been seen by one witness. Patton declares that the witness is the almost-mythical Yuri, a.

supposedly deeply planted Soviet spy who is to Washington what the Loch-Ness monster is to Scotland. Yuri must be found, and fast, "in the interests of national security." A stricken Costner, nursing heartbreak of his own, is near the top of the department's investigating team. But he knows absolutely that the Yuri story is a fake, since it was Costner himself who watched LARRY BESSEL Los Angeles Times THEATER Mark Lamos makes his directorial debut with the La Jolla Playhouse when "The School For Wives" opens Sunday at the Warren Theatre in La Jolla. Moliere's comedy, from the English translation by Richard Wilbur, is about a young ward's attempts to outwit the guardian who wants to marry her. Lamos, artistic director at Connecticut's Hartford Stage Company, has also served as artistic director for the Californian Shakespearean Festival in Visalia.

The opening night performance begins at 8 p.m., and the play continues through Sept. 12. ART What is believed to be the first San Diego group showing of monotypes, oil paintings originally transferred from zinc plates onto paper, opens Sunday at Gallery 21 in Balboa Park. Works by six San Diego artists Joan Adams, Belinda DiLeo, Brigitte Feucht, Shannon Ricaud, Jean Rippon and Angelika Villa-grana will be featured. These artists have worked for several years on the 60 monotypes featured in the exhibit, which reflect their diversity of style, talent and experience.

The exhibit opens with a public reception from 5-9 p.m. Sunday and continues through Aug. 30. CLASSICAL Matthew Garbutt conducts the San Diego Philharmonic as part of the ceremonies celebrating "America's Finest City Week" at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Embarcadero Marina Park North adjacent to Seaport Village.

The free concert has become an annual tradition, drawing thousands of San Diegans who listen at the Seaport Village area as well as from boats anchored in the bay next to the park. Music by some of the country's greatest composers will be featured, and fireworks will end the festivities. POP On stage he sings, dances, tells jokes and plays the guitar, fiddle and banjo. John Hartford will perform at the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas on Saturday. The three-time Grammy winner, best-known for penning the hit "Gentle on My Mind," has been performing his own blend of country and folk music for almost 25 years, receiving national attention with his performances on the "Glen Campbell Show" and the "Smothers Brothers Show." The show begins at 8 p.m.

KATHIE BOZANICH WHAT'S DOING Page 26 A ART SCENE Page 16 AT THE GALLERIES Page26B EXPERT PUTS BAND IN THE RIGHT LIGHT TA KEVIN LARKIN Los Angeles Times mLg tfe'-fcj Mike Camp trips the lights fantastically at the Bacchanal club. BOUNCER USES BRAIN, NOT BRAWN SAN DIEGO-The five members of Private Domain, a local rock band, are standing around on stage at the Bacchanal nightclub in Kearny Mesa, impatiently tapping their feet. They've plugged in their instruments, they've turned on their amplifiers and microphones, and they're ready to play. The crowd is lining the dance floor, waiting for the music to start. They've downed their drinks, they've chosen their TXTT- partners, and they're DIEGO ready to dance.

COUNTY The on'y one wh isn't ready is Mike Camp, the light man. He's perched on a stool in the center of the dance floor, making a last-minute focusing adjustment to one of the lights suspended from the ceiling. Moments later, he's done. Walking back to his lighting console, next to the sound board across the dance floor from the stage. Camp grins and says: "There now everything's perfect, just perfect.

The show can finally get under way." This kind of perfectionism is typical of artists, and in essence, Camp is an artist. His brushes are the nearly 40 colored lights that either hang from the ceiling in front of, above and behind the stage, or beam upward from the stage floor, three on each side. His palette is the $2,300 Avolites console from which he controls those lights, their color and their aim. His canvas is the stage itself, which he blankets with a kaleidoscopic flow of greens, reds, violets, blues, yellows, whites, oranges and pinks throughout the band's performance. His strokes, he said, are guided solely by what he hears.

"Basically, my job is to take the music and present it visually," Camp said. "I try to tell the same story, and create the same mood, with my lights that the band is trying to get across with their lyrics and with their music. "During a real dynamic part of a song, I'll use lots of bright lights and plenty of movement; during a more subtle part, I'll use softer lights and less movement. "And if the band is doing something special, like a guitar solo, I'll highlight that as well by focusing my lights on the guitarist and visually enhancing what he does. "The idea is to grab people's attention and get them involved with the music so that what they see complements what they hear." Camp, 34, has been a professional light man for eight years.

Several nights each week, he mans the lighting console for Private Domain in nightclubs like the Bacchanal. He's also been asked to do lights for such national acts as Los Lobos, at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, and Ronnie Laws, at the Pacific Amphitheater in Orange County. Earlier this year, he spent a month on the road with the Ventures. "Quite often, I'll get called at the last minute by some band whose TAKING A PEEK BEHIND THE SCENES It takes a lot more than the singers to put on a concert. In the third part of a series, Thomas K.

Arnold looks at two more of the "unsung heroes" at performances. HARPER 'HURT' BY BEING REPLACED By DIANE HAITHMAN, Times Staff Writer Valerie Harper expressed "surprise and profound disappointment" Thursday at the news that she was being replaced by Sandy Duncan as the star of the NBC comedy series named after her, "Valerie." "I still don't know why the producers told me not to come back to work," Harper said in a prepared statement. "It was entirely their decision and one that I don't understand. After working so hard on something for over three years, I am hurt that they didn't communicate with me in a more forthright manner." Harper had walked off the show July 27 after a dispute over salary demands, then returned to the set during the second week of fall production after missing the taping of the first episode, according to Lorimar, the company that produces the series for NBC. But the problems were not resolved, Barbara Brogliatti, Lorimar's vice president for corporate communications, said Thursday.

"We thought we had resolved our differences, but needless to say, things didn't quite work out as we had expected. We still have these major differences, and we've moved on to what we think is the best thing for the show." The production company announced Wednesday that Duncan had been hired to take over for Harper, a. four-time Emmy Award winner for her role as Rhoda Please see' Page 31 Madlyn Rhue, who has multiple sclerosis, I didn't think I acted just with my legs." HOWARD ROSENBERG STRICKEN WITH MS, MADLYN RHUE STILL A WORKING ACTRESS Madlyn Rhue is dancing. The orchestra is playing Cole Porter in an elegant, filmy sequence resembling a 1940s musical. Madlyn glides nimbly and gracefully to the music, her long legs carrying her up a flight of marble stairs to a vast mirrored ballroom romantically lit by crystal chandeliers.

There she is met by her tall, tuxedoed partner. Her long, milky white gown sparkles and her translucent sleeves billow as she's twirled by him across the polished floor. She's dancing wonderfully. It's a dream. Actress Madlyn Rhue has multiple sclerosis, a chronic, progressive disease of the central nervous system.

These days she dances only in her dreams and in her memories. "At the Emmys a number of years ago, they cleared the floor for Earl Holliman and me," she said. "It was Fred and Ginger. I'm a wonderful dancer." Was a wonderful dancer. Rhue began her show business career as a 17-year-old dancer in New York's Copacabana before moving on to the Latin Quarter and ultimately becoming a successful actress.

And now, 33 years later, she's in a wheelchair, an actress with 10 movies and scores of television credits in her past, stricken with a disease for which there's no known cure. "I still dream about dancing," she said before describing her partner in those chalky musicals of her fantasies. "I dream about a specific man, because I don't have one in my life right now. Sometimes the man looks like a truck driver who flirted with me." Rhue also dreams about tennis, which she once played three times a week. "I see the same people in the dreams who I played," she said.

"I'm at the net and I always win." In a much different way and for much higher stakes, Rhue is now seeking to win again. She is one of several MS sufferers helping to promote the Sept. 17 "Dinner of Champions" benefit put on by the Southern California chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. MS hit and floored Rhue like a sharp crack across the Please see A CTRESS, Page 3 1 SAN DIEGO-At 37, Terry Irwin is the baron of bar bouncers. For 13 years, he's kept a watchful eye on the San Diego night life crowd, the last eight at the Bacchanal on Kearny Mesa.

Five nights a week it's his job to make sure no one under 21, or without a valid ID card, gets past the front door and, once inside, that everyone behaves. He works out two hours a day, six days a week. His Arnold Schwarzeneg- ger build is packed qiego into a 5-foot-9 frame; COUNTY with his shorn head and bushy mustache, he resembles a turn-of-the-century boxer. But although he comes into contact with about 3,000 people a week, he said, he averages fewer than a dozen fights a year. "A bouncer can start a fight any time he wants to," Irwin said.

"The worst thing you can do is overreact, especially when people have been drinking. "When I sense that someone's going to explode on me, I'll back off and get out of his space. I always try to diffuse a situation with words instead of physical force. "I take great pride in getting troublemakers out of the bar without a fight." With a mix of local rock bands and national touring acts from jazz great Dizzy Gillespie to punk group the 550-person capacity Bacchanal is one of the most popular places in town to hear live music. When the club opens an hour before showtime, Irwin positions himself inside the front door, checking IDs and confiscating any Please see BOUNCER Page 24 regular light man didn't show up," Camp said.

"That's what happened with Ronnie Laws. He asked me to do lights 10 minutes before the concert began. "I have to admit, I was a little scared. Instead of the 38 lights at the Bacchanal, I suddenly found myself directing 250 lights in front of 18,000 people. "In situations like that, you simply have to do the best you can.

After feeling things out during the first couple of songs, my butterflies went away and everything worked out all right." On the day of a show, Camp's work generally begins around noon, when he drops by the club or concert hall for several hours to familiarize himself with the console and make any necessary adjustments. "I always try to get the maxi-Please see LIGHf, Page 26B INSIDE CALENDAR FILM: Reviews of "Can't Buy Me Love," "Eat the Peach," "The Monster Squad," "The Pornogra-phers: An Introductipn to Anthropology" and "North Shore." Pages 8, 19, 20, 24 and 26. VIDEO: VideoLog by Dennis Hunt. Page 27. TV: Tonight on TV and cable.

Page 29..