Love, the supreme passion, is only a contest of icy calculation—sort of sexual fox-hunting—for the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, the debauched French aristocrats at the heart of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Or so they tell each other. For the great irony of their high-stakes gamesmanship is that they are as consumed by hot passions as the people of whom they make sport.
I first read Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 epistolary novel for a Columbia University course in my long-ago-and-far-away undergrad days, taught by the very fine Professor Lennard Davis. Though I found this tale of revenge and betrayal reasonably diverting (especially sandwiched between Samuel Richardson's insipid Pamela and Fanny Burney's boring Evelina), it never occurred to me, intellectually unformed pup that I was (yes, yes, I hear the inevitable cry: “What’s with the past tense, Mike?”), that it could ever be transformed into a drama that both overflowed with subtext and functioned as sturdy stage carpentry, complete with intriguing opening, sharply ironic reversals and a stunning denouement.
Christopher Hampton's successful 1987 stage adaptation, with Alan Rickman-Lindsey Duncan (early in these distinguished actors' careers), proved me wrong. This past spring, at its American Airlines Theatre on 42nd Street, the Roundabout Theatre mounted the first Broadway revival of the play since that acclaimed production. I was lucky enough to catch the show in early May on a Saturday afternoon matinee.
I first read Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 epistolary novel for a Columbia University course in my long-ago-and-far-away undergrad days, taught by the very fine Professor Lennard Davis. Though I found this tale of revenge and betrayal reasonably diverting (especially sandwiched between Samuel Richardson's insipid Pamela and Fanny Burney's boring Evelina), it never occurred to me, intellectually unformed pup that I was (yes, yes, I hear the inevitable cry: “What’s with the past tense, Mike?”), that it could ever be transformed into a drama that both overflowed with subtext and functioned as sturdy stage carpentry, complete with intriguing opening, sharply ironic reversals and a stunning denouement.
Christopher Hampton's successful 1987 stage adaptation, with Alan Rickman-Lindsey Duncan (early in these distinguished actors' careers), proved me wrong. This past spring, at its American Airlines Theatre on 42nd Street, the Roundabout Theatre mounted the first Broadway revival of the play since that acclaimed production. I was lucky enough to catch the show in early May on a Saturday afternoon matinee.
Though it closed earlier this month, I think it's worthwhile to revisit it—to discover what made it work and to analyze the vast disconnect between some critics' sharp opinions and the equally manifest lack of understanding of what they see.
I'm a Roundabout Theatre subscriber, but even if that weren't the case there was no chance that I would miss this production, especially since it featured one of my favorite actresses of stage, screen, TV, or any venue in any conceivable universe: Laura Linney. In only one of her many roles have I felt that she was even slightly miscast, as the prim and plain Puritan wife Elizabeth Proctor in the 2002 revival of Arthur Miller's The Crucible that co-starred Liam Neeson.
Linney's work here came in for criticism by several reviewers, who carped that her prior work in virtuous roles little prepared her for Merteuil the icy schemer. As far as I’m concerned, this complaint just demonstrates how modern media criticism has become a license for peddling nonsense.
Laced with epigrams, double entendres and subtext, this drama of manners requires dexterous actors. Time and again, Linney demonstrated she was up for the challenge.
As the ancien regime widow and plotter Merteuil, tightly corseted at center stage, she sent out words winged with innuendo, arch malice, and resentment. Merteuil’s most famous line (“I always knew I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own”) is uttered with typical haughtiness to Valmont.
I'm a Roundabout Theatre subscriber, but even if that weren't the case there was no chance that I would miss this production, especially since it featured one of my favorite actresses of stage, screen, TV, or any venue in any conceivable universe: Laura Linney. In only one of her many roles have I felt that she was even slightly miscast, as the prim and plain Puritan wife Elizabeth Proctor in the 2002 revival of Arthur Miller's The Crucible that co-starred Liam Neeson.
Linney's work here came in for criticism by several reviewers, who carped that her prior work in virtuous roles little prepared her for Merteuil the icy schemer. As far as I’m concerned, this complaint just demonstrates how modern media criticism has become a license for peddling nonsense.
Laced with epigrams, double entendres and subtext, this drama of manners requires dexterous actors. Time and again, Linney demonstrated she was up for the challenge.
As the ancien regime widow and plotter Merteuil, tightly corseted at center stage, she sent out words winged with innuendo, arch malice, and resentment. Merteuil’s most famous line (“I always knew I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own”) is uttered with typical haughtiness to Valmont.
But Linney really unearthed all kinds of layers in her character in a less-noticed speech, when she involuntarily blurts out to her former lover, "I wanted you before we'd even met. My self-esteem demanded it. Then, when you began to pursue me…I wanted you so badly. It's the only one of my notions that has ever got the better of me."
Ben Daniels, who won an Olivier Award in Great Britain in this role, returned Linney’s volleys at every turn. He also proved a great improvement on John Malkovich in the 1988 movie version. I had always thought that Malkovich simply did not possess the good looks that made the character a ladykiller. Now, I realize, the trouble is more fundamental: that his Valmont practically slithers, snake-like, across the screen.
The Valmont of the stage—as Daniels and, I suspect, Rickman played him – is a man of action—in his element when he is most dashing around, plotting, lightning-fast. It takes this kind of character to initiate the series of events in Act II that make every scene shorter and more likely to lead to disaster for Valmont and his entire jaded society.
Though Jessica Collins did not capture the depth of torment of the object of Valmont’s careful seduction, the virtuous wife Tourvel, the rest of the supporting cast performed very well indeed.
Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter, played Cecile, an innocent teenager (also seduced by Valmont) as much more of an idiot than Uma Thurman did in the film—and, judging from Hampton's script, in a manner that was far closer to the playwright's conception of the role. Welsh actress Sian Phillips—best known on this side of the Atlantic for playing an icy villainess in a different era entirely, Livia in the Masterpiece Theatre miniseries about ancient Rome, I, Claudius—invests Madame de Rosamonde, the closest thing to an undestroyed conscience and heart in the play, with maturity and understanding. Kristine Nielsen makes Cecile’s mother Madame de Volanges such a phony that the audience is immediately rooting for Valmont to make a fool of her—though the character is such an idiot that it takes her nearly the entire play to realize what he has done.
The curtain-closing scene, with its famous silhouette of the guillotine—a foreshadowing of the bloody fate awaiting this deeply corrupt society—now also includes an equally appropriate element of stage scenery, a metaphor for everything coming before it: a spider's web.
One of my favorite pastimes as a theatergoer is attending theater-enrichment activities. The Roundabout has offered a particularly stimulating example of this in its Theatre-Plus programs. And one of the best examples of the latter featured a question-and-answer period between longtime Roundabout dramaturge Ted Sod and Caroline Weber, a professor of 18th century French literature and culture at Barnard College.
Professor Weber related how, as a career soldier sidelined from the action he craved, Laclos amused himself one year by writing a novel—his only venture into the genre—about a campaign of love rather than war, but one featuring equal amounts of strategy and tactics. She pointed out an even more surprising aspect of his background: his campaign, in the form of essays, for better educational opportunities for girls. In his novel, the fate of Cecile is a stark object lesson in the dangers of the only available opportunity of the time—a convent education that left its graduates not only intellectually vacant but hopelessly gullible.
Professor Weber was one of the best lecturers in this post-discussion series that the Roundabout has ever had in the decade in which I’ve attended performances. I’m sure nearly everyone in the audience that Saturday afternoon shared my hope that the theater’s management will bring her back for an encore performance soon.
Ben Daniels, who won an Olivier Award in Great Britain in this role, returned Linney’s volleys at every turn. He also proved a great improvement on John Malkovich in the 1988 movie version. I had always thought that Malkovich simply did not possess the good looks that made the character a ladykiller. Now, I realize, the trouble is more fundamental: that his Valmont practically slithers, snake-like, across the screen.
The Valmont of the stage—as Daniels and, I suspect, Rickman played him – is a man of action—in his element when he is most dashing around, plotting, lightning-fast. It takes this kind of character to initiate the series of events in Act II that make every scene shorter and more likely to lead to disaster for Valmont and his entire jaded society.
Though Jessica Collins did not capture the depth of torment of the object of Valmont’s careful seduction, the virtuous wife Tourvel, the rest of the supporting cast performed very well indeed.
Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter, played Cecile, an innocent teenager (also seduced by Valmont) as much more of an idiot than Uma Thurman did in the film—and, judging from Hampton's script, in a manner that was far closer to the playwright's conception of the role. Welsh actress Sian Phillips—best known on this side of the Atlantic for playing an icy villainess in a different era entirely, Livia in the Masterpiece Theatre miniseries about ancient Rome, I, Claudius—invests Madame de Rosamonde, the closest thing to an undestroyed conscience and heart in the play, with maturity and understanding. Kristine Nielsen makes Cecile’s mother Madame de Volanges such a phony that the audience is immediately rooting for Valmont to make a fool of her—though the character is such an idiot that it takes her nearly the entire play to realize what he has done.
The curtain-closing scene, with its famous silhouette of the guillotine—a foreshadowing of the bloody fate awaiting this deeply corrupt society—now also includes an equally appropriate element of stage scenery, a metaphor for everything coming before it: a spider's web.
One of my favorite pastimes as a theatergoer is attending theater-enrichment activities. The Roundabout has offered a particularly stimulating example of this in its Theatre-Plus programs. And one of the best examples of the latter featured a question-and-answer period between longtime Roundabout dramaturge Ted Sod and Caroline Weber, a professor of 18th century French literature and culture at Barnard College.
Professor Weber related how, as a career soldier sidelined from the action he craved, Laclos amused himself one year by writing a novel—his only venture into the genre—about a campaign of love rather than war, but one featuring equal amounts of strategy and tactics. She pointed out an even more surprising aspect of his background: his campaign, in the form of essays, for better educational opportunities for girls. In his novel, the fate of Cecile is a stark object lesson in the dangers of the only available opportunity of the time—a convent education that left its graduates not only intellectually vacant but hopelessly gullible.
Professor Weber was one of the best lecturers in this post-discussion series that the Roundabout has ever had in the decade in which I’ve attended performances. I’m sure nearly everyone in the audience that Saturday afternoon shared my hope that the theater’s management will bring her back for an encore performance soon.
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