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| Janet McTeer as the Marquise de Merteuil in the Broadway revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses |
Les Liaisons Dangereuses,
Booth Theatre, New York, review
L
es Liaisons Dangereuses has rarely been far from view in the 31 years since Christopher Hampton’s adaptation of the 1782 epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos was premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford and then in London, under the direction of Howard Davies, who died last week.
From its comparatively below-the-radar beginnings came an extended West End run, multiple revivals, an acclaimed film, and, currently, a fresh Broadway outing for Hampton’s scintillating account of the sexual and power politics of a bygone era that possesses startling affinities with our own.
This new staging signals the Broadway debut of English director Josie Rourke and marks the first Liaisons in my experience to come anywhere near the power of the original; a previous Broadway revival in 2008, starring a miscast Laura Linney, did the work no favours at all.
Its newfound elan is thanks to a sizzling cast led by the sublime Janet McTeer and a bolder take on the piece from Rourke, who previously directed it last winter at the Donmar Warehouse, her London home. Whereas McTeer previously had to do the thespian heavy lifting, this Broadway version – entirely recast except for her – features a stronger ensemble.
Furthermore, the saturnine Liev Schreiber, replacing Dominic West as that baleful libertine the Vicomte de Valmont, will surely grow yet further into his role. (Oddly, like West when I caught him in London, Schreiber wasn’t entirely on top of his lines.)
McTeer commands the stage from our first sight of her Marquise de Merteuil standing motionless to one side and cutting a ripely alluring figure who looks as if she can barely be contained by the sumptuous period costuming. Her voice, in turn, is an ongoing purr that seems to caress the language, no matter how dastardly the misdeeds that she and onetime lover, Valmont, concoct.
Embodiments of a heedless social order whose days are numbered, the two circle around one another with envenomed glee as they ensnare the smitten bedmates whom they bring to ruin: Hampton democratically gives the provocateurs equal time, clear though it is that the noose is tightening all the while. Tom Scutt’s design suggestively offers up candle-lit chandeliers that get snuffed out and then disappear altogether – a grand, gilded age on the cusp of extinction.
Chief among the pair’s victims is the virtuous (and married) Madame de Tourvel, to whom Borgen star Birgitte Hjort Sorensen brings a rending awareness that she exists less as an individual in her own right than as Valmont’s “plan”. (The Danish actress previously appeared at the Donmar in Rourke’s 2013 production of Coriolanus.) Joining her on Valmont’s hit list, as it were, is Elena Kampouris as an especially excitable Cecile Volanges, who in a burst of pre-coital athleticism lands herself directly on Schreiber’s groin (ouch!).
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| Pierre Choderlos de Laclos |
It’s worth remarking, perhaps, the peculiar bursts of laughter that greeted Valmont’s more extreme behavior, a near-rape indicating Schreiber’s ease at eliding charm and savagery: perhaps the audience was embarrassed? At such moments, Rourke allows a period piece to tap into gender wars that are being waged even now while ensuring that this Liaisons feels newly dangerous, indeed.
Until January 22; tickets: liaisonsbroadway.com
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