Wednesday night, a fair sized group braved the cold and slippery roads to see National Theater Live’s screening of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. A stunning play in it’s honesty, brutality, moral ambiguity, discussion of sex and pleasure, it creates just as complicating and deep feelings in its audience.
The set for this production, performed within the Donmar Warehouse, perfectly complimented the theater’s space. With an audience on three sides of the stage it created a sense of forced intimacy that reflected the idea of confinement some of the characters grapple with. The set pieces themselves were fairly minimalist with one chase, a harpsichord, a few chairs and a changing array of paintings. The walls of the space, which simply became a different room in a different house based on the arrangement of the limited furniture, looked as if they belonged in the paintings themselves, they were so artfully done. The colors were warm but not flashy and lit by candlelight they added to the intimate feel. Because, yes, this show was lit largely by candlelight. There were chandeliers with rings of candles on them, that lowered and rose as the amount of light was needed. Actors carried around large candlesticks in evening scenes, just as they would have in the pre-French revolution period that the show is set in. The dramatic lighting and sharp contrasts this provided really highlighted the betrayal and intrigue that is the at the heart of the production.
(I will not be talking about the show scene by scene but there may be some SPOILERS for those who have not seen the play)
This visual beauty was equally matched by the chemistry of the two leads. Janet McTeer and Dominic West, who play La Marquise de Merteuil and Le Vicomte de Valmont respectively, were both stunning. They were flirtatious, scornful, malicious, tender, brutally honest, humorous, and charming; usually all at the same time. At first their relationship was so much fun and it was the never-can-be-quite- platonic relationship of old lovers. Which just added a feeling of excitement to all their interactions. But it seemed for the most part, their cruel game of seduction and wits was more the reason for their friendship than their attraction for each other. That and the always lively banter.
Janet McTeer was especially striking. Dominic West left nothing to be desired; he played the charming bad boy with ruckus charm. No, it’s simply that I found the story and development of his character less intriguing. As a modern audience member, and I have no doubt in almost any period, I felt I’d seen it all before: the man who likes to sleep around but never really finds love in his string of lovers till one woman “changes” him and he gets in over his head. On the other hand, La Marquise de Merteuil in her time, and even now, was extremely fascinating. McTeer really made the character her own, capitalizing on opportunities to incorporate real humor, not even just malicious amusement, into La Marquise.
La Marquise used her knowledge of the patriarchal system to manipulate people, not just men, for her amusement and pleasure. She was able to find agency and, as she pointed out, it is necessary for women to be more skillful in this than men. While at first amazing and amusing, her ability and commitment to this manipulation slowly grew more and more disturbing. At one of my favorite lines of the show La Marquise said “I was born to dominate your sex, and avenge mine”, McTeer was particularly scary.
While I enjoyed that line, and still do frankly, I find its place within the show interesting to say the least. While for a time to a viewer this might appear true, as the play progresses and her obsession with revenge on an old lover and fear that Valmonte may no longer love her, slowly lead the audience members to question how she thought she was avenging anyone but herself. The same holds true for Valmont, though he proved less adept to the game. Perhaps the first very disturbing example of this was when, in Valmont’s seduction of the innocent
Cecile, he forced himself on her, telling her she couldn’t go to her mother because this could ruin her reputation. When Cecile confided in La Marquise about how upset she was and about her feeling of being violated, La Marquise told her basically to snap out of it. We got the sense that Cecile is supposed to be honored that she was being enlightened, and by such a master of the science of “pleasure”. Both of the main characters roles in this affair were extremely problematic: First, Valmont raping Cecile is very different from willing bedding a lot of women and showed a very different side of his character (even if this time period didn’t define rape as we do today). It’s the first time we saw some of the power he enjoyed exercising, so clearly. Secondly, by condoning and actually encouraging this interaction to both Valmont and Cecile, how was La Marquise avenging her sex by putting its fellow members at the mercy of men who could overpower them?
The next instance when audiences really realized La Marquise had lost it washer basically demanding that Valmont leave the women he loves. She has begun to realize Valmont actually loves his latest conquest and La Marquise’s jealousy is overpowering.Things advance and his latest conquest ends of being one of the many lives she ruins. Janet McTeer’s portrayal throughout this was natural and deceptively cunning, after her character; at moments her power of the stage and her character’s of the situation were daunting.
One thing I missed until the show basically threw it in my face, was the very numerous appearance of cards. They were used as prop pieces throughout the entire show, whenever someone needed to be busy in a corner. A card game actually opened the show. At the end, the last scene is done with the remaining women holding cards, “playing” a game, and that’s when I connected the dots. It’s really ingenious because the whole show was about people playing their cards and hoping they could outmaneuver the other’s cards. This final scene, with the women holding the cards, was also the moment when La Marquise was unable to deny her defeat. All her maneuvers had been for nothing. The vanity, savagery, and jealousy, with copious amounts of humor, blended into a delicious game whose story will keep audiences enthralled for many more years to come!
