THEATRE REVIEW: DANGEROUS LIAISONS
13 Aug'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 5 out of 5

STRATFORD – Any student of human nature must recognize that novelist Choderlos de Laclos didn't really discover mankind's propensity for turning his favourite contact sport into a blood sport He simply revealed it, with a lot of relish.

He did it, of course, in LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, a novel that would subsequently be famously, even expertly, adapted to the stage a few centuries on by British playwright Christopher Hampton. That adaptation proved so successful, it spawned a hit movie titled DANGEROUS LIAISONS. Now, Hampton's adaptation is back on stage, oddly enough sporting the movie's title, in a lavish new production by the Stratford Festival that swept across the stage of the Festival Theatre on Thursday in all but epic style.

Set among the French aristocracy in the days before it fell under the heels of a blood-soaked revolution -- a fact underscored with a rather heavy hand in this production -- DANGEROUS LIAISONS is, at its heart, a love story, albeit a love story twisted into shapes almost unrecognizable by the hothouse environment in which it has been forced to bloom. Once intimates, the fading and widowed La Marquise de Merteuil (Seana McKenna) and the rakish Le Vicomte de Valmont (Tom McCamus) have settled into a strange form of friendship that allows them to treasure the memory of the physical intimacies they once shared, even while they separately pursue new conquests.

It is on the basis of that friendship that they join in a conspiracy to humiliate a man who has slighted them both, while spicing up their own relationship. To that end, Valmont will seduce and debauch the man's virginal young bride -- the young Cecile Volanges, played by Bethany Jillard -- thus robbing the bridegroom of the very innocence he most treasures, and paying the bridegroom back for abandoning La Marquise's favour for the charms of a woman who had been sharing the bed of Le Vicomte.

As a sort of side bet, Valmont also undertakes to seduce the virtuous and virtually irreproachable Mme de Tourvel, played by Sara Topham, debauching her despite her celebrated piety and her devotion to her marriage. The prize, should he succeed on both fronts, is a renewal of intimacies with La Marquise herself, for all that her bed seldom has a chance to cool since he left it.

Impressively directed by Ethan McSweeny and lavishly designed by Santo Loquasto, this is a compelling production, even if it is occasionally unbalanced by too much talk and not enough action. While there are impressive performances throughout from a blue-blooded supporting cast -- the venerable Martha Henry, the always impressive Yanna McIntosh and the evergreen Michael Therriault joining Jillard and Topham in an all but flawless ensemble -- it belongs, in the end, to McCamus and McKenna. And well it should, for rarely have these two worked better, either separately or as a team.

As the conniving Marquise, McKenna uses a blazing sense of femininity and a razor-sharp intellect to conceal a heart so hard and cold that it could probably crush diamonds, while McCamus brings enough charm and swagger -- the latter impeded only slightly by the heels his costuming demands -- that he seduces his audience with the same ease with which he undoes the virtue of the lovely young Cecile.

There are occasional nits that could be picked, were one so inclined. While McSweeney's solution to scenic changes is impressive, it also turns a lot of those scene changes into too-stately minuets, and the rock-infused score often proves intrusive, even while it showcases the uncredited voice of Stratford alum Tyley Ross. But weighed off against the skill of McKenna and McCamus, these are niggling concerns indeed. This company, Laclos, Hampton, and the audience, all come out winners.