Review: Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber Star In Visually Gorgeous and Emotionally Stark LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES

An older man makes it clear that he intends to have his way with a young woman who trusted him. When she struggles, he assures her that she won't be believed if she says she wasn't asking for it, and she knows he's right.

Although this scene has been played out in two previous Broadway productions of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' scandalous 1782 French epistolary novel, the actions of its protagonists may be seem less titillating and more repulsive in this time of heightened discussion of issues involving seduction vs. rape and consent vs. coercion.

Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber star in a well-acted and visually gorgeous production directed by Josie Rourke, which originated at London's Donmar Warehouse, as aristocrats and former lovers La Marquise de Merteuil and Le Vicomte de Valmont, both masters at using sex and seduction as weapons of cruelty and sources of personal amusement.

Upon learning that a man who dumped her and then took a lover away from Valmont is to marry the young, convent-educated Cecile de Volanges (ELena Kampouris) because he has his heart set on wedding a virgin, Merteuil suggests that her friend use his charms to not only gain entrance to the bride-to-be's bed, but to teach her so thoroughly that her new husband will find himself with a woman who not only knows exactly how to please a man, but how to ask for what she knows will please her.

Valmont, however, is preoccupied with his plot to seduce married Madame de Tourvel (Birgitte Hjort Sorensen), a woman famous for her exceptional morals and religious fervor. Merteuil sweetens the pot by offering Valmont something she knows he desires, one more night of her favors, if he can succeed.

Though their plot seems to be succeeding without a hitch, when one of them succumbs to actual love, it pits the two allies against each other to a tragic finish.

While Merteuil and Valmont aren't exactly sympathetic characters, Hampton softens their predatory nature with amusing and wicked banter. In one exchange Merteuil tells her lustful friend that he must leave because she's about to dine. When Valmont quips that he has quite an appetite himself, she tells him to "go home and eat."

Rourke's production plays down such humor, going for a cold, emotionally stark feel that is, in its own way, quite captivating. McTeer's Merteuil is brilliantly manipulative, and while she lavishly embraces Hampton's elevated language, her silences can be overwhelming.

Schreiber's Valmont is cool and understated, a man who knows his devastatingly manly good looks will accomplish more than his wit.

Set and costume designer Tom Scutt places all of the action on a unit set of deteriorating elegance dominated by a large empty frame. He and lighting designer Mark Henderson create beautiful visuals that make the actors appear to be part of a living oil painting, though the choice to occasionally replace the collection of period chandeliers with contemporary fluorescent lamps is a puzzling one.

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