In 1782, Choderlos de Laclos' novel of sex, intrigue and betrayal in pre-revolutionary France scandalized the world. Two hundred years later, in 1985, Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation became an award-winning sensation in London's West End and on Broadway, followed by the Academy Award-winning film Dangerous Liaisons.
Former lovers, La Marquise de Merteuil and Le Vicomte de Valmont compete in games of seduction and revenge. These merciless aristocrats toy with the hearts and reputations of innocents. Merteuil incites Valmont to corrupt the convent-educated Cecile de Volanges before her wedding night but Valmont has other designs. His target is the peerlessly virtuous and happily married Madame de Tourvel.
Josie Rourke's acclaimed production transfers to Broadway after a sold-out engagement at London's Donmar Warehouse which ended earlier this year and starred Janet McTeer. The production was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Revival.
Tony Award winners Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber will return to Broadway this Fall in the Donmar Warehouse production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton, directed by the Donmar's Artistic Director Josie Rourke.
I could dwell on those performances endlessly. Unfortunately, my immediate duty compels me to consider these figures of natural grandeur in the state of unnatural captivity into which they have been penned in 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses,' which opened on Sunday night at the Booth Theater, a production during which you pray for their deliverance.
Schreiber gives it his best shot, but the sensitive feelings of a charming libertine don't register in the same way that his more animal appetites do. Not that animal appetites are quite the thing for this play. Schreiber is a strong actor and a studly kind of male, and despite a constricting costume and skull-pinching wig, he exudes a modern manliness that hardly suits the effete Valmont.
1987 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2008 | Broadway |
Roundabout Revival Broadway |
2015 | West End |
Donmar Warehouse Production West End |
2016 | Broadway |
Donmar Warehouse Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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