Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 199

1 i EfflTERTTABMME IT Unlikely Love in a Departure for Wilson BURN New play by Linford Wilson starring John Maltovidi and Joan Allan Directed by Marshall Mason With Jonathan Hogan and Lou Liberators Plymouth Theater on Broadway Marita Swop John Malkovich Lou Liberators center and Joan Allen In This' but drawn to her During the long arc his outrider's scorn and her wariness dissolve in an ambiguous tangle of grief and desire conflicts emerge more slowly when she sees her feelings for Pale threatening her work and disrupting her life Prominent in her life is her safe well-to-do boyfriend Burton (Jonathan Hogan) a successful screenwriter who wants to marry her talk of writing about people in the past who "felt things in a more profound evokes a passion neither of them had experienced It is Pale who feels in a profound way but his passion represents raw menace not misty romanco Serving as go-between and observer is gay roommate Larry (Lou Libera tore) Ilia wry wit plays against the ferocity of an outsider who is anything but pale In Marshall Mason's understanding production the subordinate roles are fleshed out admirably and the play is dotted with telling details Wilson and Mason longtime' collaborators leave some things unexplained perhaps to underscore the unknowability of people especially those who attach to their written expressions of emotion a cautious warning to "burn The central mystery is love which Wilson showB flares up between the most unlikely people Elusive and capricious it be explained by any play although this one might have none more to make us sense its searing heat But Wilson gives a familiar situation the attraction between people from different worlds fresh and unexpected complexity II EARLY IN Lanford "Burn a young woman tells of having stayed overnight in a room where she was suddenly awakened by the' beating of supposedly dead butterflies impaled on the wall The account foreshadows her abrupt awakening to sexuality and love under circum- stances almost as bizarre The play is a departure for Wilson even if it is filled with the kind of flavor-some dialogue humor and penetrating insights that have characterized his work over the years He is exploring the inexplicable arrival of love between disparate people a dancer-turned-choreographer and a feral stranger who bursts violently into her life like a latter-day Stanley Kowalski He makes the attraction of opposites seem like a collision between planets that had been re-volving in widely separated elliptical orbits He has also written two roles with wide scope for actors and John Mal-kovich and Joan Allen play them beautifully Malkovich takes enor impressive things not the least of them the remarkable scene in which Anna and Pale a married restaurant manager with shadowy mob connections meet in her lower Manhattan loft (a fine John Lee Beatty set) Both had beat mourning the same man Bobby a gifted dancer who died in a boating accident was younger brother and one of two homosexuals who shared the loft with Anna Like few other writers today Wilson lets us see how many contradictory feelings can arise in a single encounter Pale come charging in after dark ostensibly to collect Bobby's things is torn apart by conflicts: He loved his brother but hated the homosexuality that undermined his own macho persona he is contemptuous of Anna and her world mous risks in an outsized portrayal of a volatile man who all but feels compelled to be obnoxious Wearing a shoulder-length black wig the actor is a raging bull who batters down your resistance and rivets your attention Allen gives dimension to the more internalized part of a woman fighting to resist this uncouth intruder My one serious reservation about "Burn is that it make the love between Anna Mann and the man who calls himself Pale palpable enough We need to feel their sexual desire being transformed into a love deep enough to transcend their enormous differences This demands an alchemy beyond the reach of intelligence and Wilson quite achieve it He does accomplish a great many Court Blocks Video By Martin Kasindorf HUNDREDS PERHAPS thousands of New Yorkers responded to a $3 million HBO Video advertising blitz Wednesday by Icing focal retailers to rent them videocassettes of director Oliver Academy Award-winning memoir of the Vietnam War All the inquirers were turned away empty-handed of a federal court injunction there wasn't a tape of to be found on any retail shelf in the United States on the day of the eagerly awaited videocassette appearance aghast and fumed David Pritchard HBO vice president of corporate affairs With 350000 tapes aboard trucks and ready for shipment HBO distribution of the cassettes was enjoined by a federal appellate court in San Francisco last week at the behest of a rival cassette marketer Vestron Video of Stamford Conn David Bargman director of legal affairs said he had "noidea" how long consumers would be delayed in watching at home It was the most drastic action yet in a legal baft1 over the potentially lucrative video rights to the hit film The injunction also forbade further distribution of which has been on rental shelves for a mnnth and commanded HBO to try to get back every cassette which has not been sold outright to a home consumer Last March Vestron brought a $40 million lawsuit against Hemdale Film Corp charging NEWSDAY THURSDAY OCTOBER 15 19S7 Part H7 An Injunction stopped distribution of videocassettes of (with Charlie Sheen Keith David) breach of a-1985 contract giving Vestron video rights to and for $74 million Responding that Vestron itself had breached the contract fay failing to make advance payments Hemdale signed a $15 million deal with HBO Vestron then brought a federal copyright-infringement claim against HBO Pending appeal of a lower dismissal of this suit the appellate court granted the injunction Lauren Tung a salesperson at Champagne Video II on Second Avenue in Manhattan reported "Our members are extremely The store manager Rich Bozza said "I have to give that spiel about the injunction seven or eight times a Hemdale IIBO and two video trade associations have petitioned the court to lift the injunction "This injunction does nobody any good" complained Charles Wake attorney "Vestron is cutting its nose off to spite its face It has an adequate remedy in damages If these tapes distributed going to be no money for anybody period" Bargman explained "It's an important matter to Vestron to live up to our contracts and we ask others to live up to their contracts II.