But several movie versions, a television miniseries, and one other Broadway revival later, we have grown so familiar with these decadent creatures and their labyrinthine intrigues that something extra is needed to spice things up - something which, I submit, is altogether missing in Josie Rourke's respectable, but unexciting, staging.įor those who saw it, the 1987 production (from Royal Shakespeare Company), directed by the great Howard Davies (who, sadly, died last week), casts a very long shadow. Although, the play's source material, the novel by Choderlos de Laclos, is a classic of French literature, it was never that well known here, and when Christopher Hampton's adaptation opened on Broadway in 1987, this tale of sex-and-power games among the French aristocracy - unfolding just before guillotine blades started to separate those prettily wigged heads from their beautifully dressed bodies - came as an invigorating shock. Some of this may be due to sheer familiarity. They may be starring in a drama about the uses of lust, but, for me, seeing the production the other night, the thrill was almost gone. The image is provocative, erotic, startling - indeed, everything the production it advertises is not. Both appear to be in a state of transport. The skirt of her green satin dress is pulled up and Liev Schreiber is pressed against her, his head cradled in her neck and his left hand gripping her exposed thigh. The poster for the new Donmar Warehouse production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses features Janet McTeer seated, her back resting against an easel on which sits a painting depicting nudes in a pastoral setting. Theatre in Review: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Booth Theatre)
0 kommentar(er)
