Review - Les Liaisons Dangereuses

I didn't see Les Liaisons Dangereuses in its first incarnation (it's one of my time machine "I wish I saw that" shows), but I have read the play and I did see the film Dangerous Liaisons when it came out.  All that is to say I know the story, but I haven't really been in contact with it in maybe 20 years.  When it was announced that Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber would be heading a Broadway revival as Valmont and Merteuil, I was immediately intrigued.  I think they're both brilliant.

Reviews weren't good, though, and discounts weren't available until recently.  I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend my limited funds to see a show that very few of my friends liked.  I hemmed and hawed, but I finally decided that seeing Liev Schreiber was too important to miss, so I picked up a discounted ticket for last night's performance.  I'm glad I saw it, I think, but I didn't completely enjoy myself.  There were so many empty spots in the production that I wonder why it needed to be done at all.

I should preface my remarks with this:  I think Liev Schreiber may have been injured last night.  He seemed to be limping and having issues with his back.  I've asked a couple of other people I know who have seen it if it was some kind of weird character choice and they said he didn't behave that way when they saw it.  He awkwardly got up from a seated position several times and I'm pretty sure I heard him say 'ow' at one point. So I may have seen a compromised performance that led to the lack of chemistry or excitement in the evening. Janet McTeer also seemed to be ailing - in her big monologue about why she behaves the way she does, she started coughing and had to stop several times.  Maybe I just saw an off performance.  But I can only judge what was in front of me...

The wit and intelligence and fierce pride was in full display in the lead characters, there's no doubt about that.  But the production has been directed at a glacial pace.  It's as if they were luxuriating in the language so much, it didn't really matter WHAT they said as opposed to how long it took them to say it.  Which can be a character choice, I guess, but golly the play just draaaaaaged at many points.  There were however, snippets of scenes that were so engaging and riveting that it just made me more frustrated when they were followed by slowness.  At one point, Janet McTeer's character starts talking about how 'lugubrious' the conversation is and all I could think was THAT'S IT!  That's the word to describe the production.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

A lot of the time, I felt like this was a not-for-profit theater production, where they cast two stellar leads and then filled out the rest of the cast with people they found on the TKTS line because they ran out of money. Other than the leads and Mary Beth Piel, as Valmont's aunt, there seemed to be a callowness to the performers which took away from their performances.  In my opinion, they just didn't bring enough to the table.  I did, however, love the sets and costumes, and found the women singing between scenes engaging, even if it didn't make sense to me in the whole of the directorial concept.

I also have to mention something else - I'm not one for trigger warnings, or those types of things, but I found the seduction scene between Valmont and the young girl Cecile to be very disturbing, and probably not in the way that the director intended.  Intellectually, I know the time period, I know we needed a sexual awakening, I know we're seeing Valmont's power of persuasion, I know it's just a play, I know all that. But emotionally, it really bothered me a great deal.  I thought it was rather horrifying.  Here was a large, mature male, with his hands inside the undergarments of a young girl just out of the convent.  A teen saying no, but he continues.  We see a man sexually dominate a young girl without consent.  I hated it.  I also hated how quite a few members of the audience were laughing.  Not that awkward, oh this is bad so I'll laugh it off kind of laugh, but actual laughter.  Liev had established his dry humor early on, and Cecile was being played as a comically stupid girl, but still.  I don't know how else the scene could've been done to mitigate the awfulness, but I do know it took me out of the play and to a place I didn't want to be.  So...there's that.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

I don't know.  It's weird to say I didn't really like the production but I'm not sorry I saw it. I guess because even though they emitted no sexual sparks or chemistry, Liev Schreiber and Janet McTeer are always worth seeing.  They're such wonderful, intelligent but also vitally alive stage performers that watching them construct a character from top to bottom is fascinating.  They both had delicious moments, but generally not with each other.  Maybe I was just expecting more. And maybe the physical ailments exacerbated the remoteness of their connection (or lack thereof).   

Seat neighbor-wise, we were all a little bit chilly in the back of the orchestra.  I was glad to have a warm scarf to wrap myself in.  The ladies behind me had a hard time with the English accents and kept saying to each other, 'what?!'  At least they did it quietly.  A fistfight almost broke out across the aisle from me, when someone got onto their cell phone midway through the first act and wouldn't turn it off.  House management came and shone a flashlight in their face.  How embarrassing.  I also want to mention the man that pushed me out of the way at the box office who exclaimed "I AM A TONY VOTER." Uh...so? Wait your turn, sir.  Mr. Tony Voter then proceeded to leave at intermission, the doofus.  Of course, I have to admit there were quite a few walkouts at intermission, so maybe it wasn't just his fault.  I saw a few other theater acquaintances in the house, so it was nice to say hello and happy holidays to them.  I'm glad they understood about my five-block rule and didn't question me about the show on the way out.

I puzzled about the show on the way out and on the subway home.  I probably shouldn't have to be so puzzled about it; I feel as if the passion and the desire and the revenge should've been so strong, the entire audience was wrapped up in it.  And we weren't.   At least I wasn't.  So that was disappointing, but there were flashes of something that lead me to believe either the production could've been better or that I was seeing an off night. Either way, Liev Schreiber and Janet McTeer are always worth the price of admission (well, a TDF admission, anyway).  Maybe they are stronger alone than together (wait, is that what I was supposed to get??).  Or something.