In 1782, Choderlos de Laclos' novel of sex, intrigue and betrayal in pre-revolutionary France scandalized the world. Two hundred years later, in 1985, Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation became an award-winning sensation in London's West End and on Broadway, followed by the Academy Award-winning film Dangerous Liaisons.
Former lovers, La Marquise de Merteuil and Le Vicomte de Valmont compete in games of seduction and revenge. These merciless aristocrats toy with the hearts and reputations of innocents. Merteuil incites Valmont to corrupt the convent-educated Cecile de Volanges before her wedding night but Valmont has other designs. His target is the peerlessly virtuous and happily married Madame de Tourvel.
Josie Rourke's acclaimed production transfers to Broadway after a sold-out engagement at London's Donmar Warehouse which ended earlier this year and starred Janet McTeer. The production was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Revival.
Tony Award winners Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber will return to Broadway this Fall in the Donmar Warehouse production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton, directed by the Donmar's Artistic Director Josie Rourke.
Schreiber may never seem inevitably to the manor born. He is not a preener and, at first, that wig with Vulcan hairline hardly eases him into the elegance of Christopher Hampton's deliciously evil and erotic 1985 adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous novel. And yet Schreiber finds another way, an increasingly irresistible way, into a character generally expected to exemplify the exquisite, unrepentant boredom of the pre-Revolution French aristocracy. This Valmont seems more drawn to the mischief of the games he plots with the Marquise that ruin innocent people for sport and revenge. Despite his height and despite the violent moments when rough seductions get cringingly close to what we perceive today as rape, his Valmont is a bit of an imp - bemused, playful, almost touching in his insolent confidence.
This production has no doubt that Merteuil will win, though at some cost to herself, and Schreiber seems to sense this. There's a saturnine, slightly defeated air to his alcoholic Valmont. Despite Schreiber's height, swagger and masculine force, his Valmont is no match for Merteuil. He layers some of his eventual rout into the earlier scenes, all but ceding the stage to McTeer. McTeer knows what to do with it. She has set her voice somewhere between purr and growl and arranged her hands and arms into movements that are both perfect expressions of court gestures and precise parodies of them. Her Merteuil is both elegant and vicious, with an air of surface refinement barely concealing the ferocity below. There are claws beneath her manicure, fangs behind her smile. Her extraordinary performance is scorching and chilling. Ice and fire at once.
1987 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2008 | Broadway |
Roundabout Revival Broadway |
2015 | West End |
Donmar Warehouse Production West End |
2016 | Broadway |
Donmar Warehouse Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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