Certainly, scandal sells. In the 18th century, Choderlos de Laclos' "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" was that one piece of juicy drama secretly devoured by personages ranging from Marie Antoinette to your common milkman but loathed publicly for its sensuality and immorality. It's a famously sexy tale of love, lust and lies with numerous film offspring (including 1999's teenybopper adaptation, "Cruel Intentions").
The Huntington Theatre Company takes its stab at the tale in Christopher Hampton's theatrical adaptation of Laclos' novel. Scandalous? Somewhat - but this "Liaisons" just doesn't seduce the audience.
The heart of the matter - or lack thereof - is just what it sounds like: twisted relationships between bored aristocrats who should know better, but, alas, have nothing else to do. The Vicomte de Valmont (Michael T. Weiss) is your typical Don Juan whose main hobby is being too sexy for his chemise and corrupting virginal mademoiselles. Oh, that infamous type is familiar indeed: He's sickeningly confident and suave, bored and effortless in pursuing his prey from the first rendezvous to the last.
With his ex-lover, the premature divorc?©e Marquise de Merteuil (Tasha Lawrence), the Vicomte contrives to manipulate and seduce his well-bred social circle, including the innocent teenager C?©cile (Louisa Krause) and the prudish Pr?©sidente de Tourvel (Yvonne Woods) - because he can. That is, of course, until some unexpected complications (frailty, thy name is woman!) foil the Vicomte's willpower, whilst proving that a bitter femme like the Marquise is a formidable enemy indeed.
The dialogue here is fast and rather witty at times, but picks up towards the middle of the action. It has a tendency to spit back and forth, like a Baroque ping-pong game: As much as "Liaisons" refers to the sport of the devious duo, it's also a reverberating duel between l'homme and la femme.
The Marquise establishes in the very beginning that "love is something you use, not something you fall into," and she's quick to prove that. After all, here is a woman with nothing but her sexuality at her disposal; she uses it for purely sadistic reasons. She has no qualms about this, because "women are obligated to be far more skillful than men." She is beyond the capacity to love; her affairs are perfunctory.
Of the entire cast, Lawrence's cynicism has the distinction of being justifiably genuine. She says what she says and does what she does without conscience; if ever she loved the Vicomte, she's not afraid to use him now. Her pragmatism is dangerously contagious, and she works it into her interactions with the others. These exchanges grow particularly snappy by the second act, as her malice breeds ever more assuredly.
A particular period piece, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" is not without eye candy. The scene and costume designers (James Noone and Erin Chainani, respectively) produced a finely furnished maison complete with a fancy functioning staircase, sparkly lighting and fiercely-costumed
mesdames and messieurs. The pre-Revolutionary wealth combined with the "let them eat cake" mentality of that society translates to richly bountiful satins, skirts and corsets onstage, all of which are obnoxiously snooty and visually delicious. (They're rather quick to come off, too, so don't bring your kid siblings.) Though these anti-heroes might peeve us, they have way better outfits than Ryan and Reese.
Yet there is still something missing, something preventing an otherwise solid production from coming together. The characters hold their parts, but rather blandly; there's little chemistry between them, especially in the absence of the destructive Marquise.
When Vicomte declares his (supposedly real?) love for the virtuously uptight Pr?©sidente de Tourvel (Yvonne Woods) to the Marquise, she believes him much more than the audience does. Are we to suppose, then, that our villainous hero is capable of change and not perpetual molestation of one girl after another? His is a murky, cynical world - too cynical, perhaps, for our hero to remain believable. There's no room for him to grow; no room for his scaly personality to develop into a transition beyond a stereotype. His reactions to all the women he touches - whether he loves or loathes them - seem the same from beginning to end.
If, then, the real dangerous liaison is the existence of real love, in this production it's only very briefly sketched - mechanically, without passion, and without integrity, even in the final moments.
In the words of the anti-heroine herself, "One does not applaud the tenor for clearing his throat." There's a whole unsung aria there, a deep look into potential human capacity to grow and change. Or maybe we all just had the hots for Ryan Phillippe in middle school.
