This new production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, a glamorous, engrossing period drama, showing at the Oxford Playhouse, is elevated by its stars into one of the great shows of the year.
So much of a production owes itself to the behind-the-scenes team, and so the vision for this one belongs to director Lucas Angeli and film-coordinator/co-producer Sonya Luchanskaya. It was a visionary move on their part to project a live film recording behind the onstage action – although the effort only doubtfully comes off. For chunks of the play the audience cannot even see the actors’ faces. The screen is dominant. The camera team obstructs the view. At one point a second screen comes down to distort the projection, with the distractingly psychedelic effect of a 3D film viewed without glasses.
Still, the director is responsible for moulding the actors and for creating a sense of mood and scene. In that, Mr Angeli succeeds commendably. An orchestra plays vivid music completely in tune with the action onstage – the achievement of composer and musical director Lou Newton. Above all, the performers are a crop of immense talent.
The lascivious hero, Valmont, played with dynamism and gusto by Mr Nic Rackow, is a cross between two types: the eighteenth-century picaresque adventurer a la Smollett, and the nineteenth-century young man on the rise a la Stendhal. (The play takes place just before the French Revolution). Like the great method actors, Mr Rackow succeeds in effacing his own personality and absorbs himself completely in the character. Valmont’s drawled quips are perfectly timed; his tenderer moments never sentimental; his seductions smooth and frightening; his yelled outbursts malicious with rage; his bestial leers in villainous scenes enough to warrant the trigger warning. His rendering of the character’s final scene presents a scalding view of human vulnerability which is worthy of Othello. Mr Rackow brings to this range of traits a portrayal which burns onstage and remains riveting throughout. He is revelatory.
Valmont’s great onstage rival is played by Ms Susie Weidmann. Ms Weidmann tells me that this was her most challenging role to date. In fact, her signature expression of slightly resentful contempt is perfectly suited to the strong-willed and scheming Meteuil. Her early monologue about the position of women in French society, and her consistent underlying drive never to play the obedient woman, mark her out as a character of rare and great power. Her conflicts with Valmont are by turns cold, playful, and fierce. Ms Weidmann embodies them all excellently.
Tourvel, the most passionate character in the play, is played by Ms Alice Wyles. Ms Wyles’s past experiences as a Shakesperean heroine, as Titania last May and Ophelia last November, have equipped her for the explosiveness and poetry of this character. Tourvel’s downfall, which in the original novel is a cliched one, is here presented as the inevitable outcome of the passions which Ms Wyles conveys with such verve, although at times, such as when she breaks down onstage, she acts overzealously.
Ms Vita Hamilton, playing Volanges, another victim of Valmont, proves herself an immersive performer. She manages, through sheer control of expression and tone, to convince us that she is the mature, middle-aged woman of the play. This is harder than it sounds, and to disguise one’s age is a skill of which few actors are capable. Ms Hamilton possesses the skillset of a great cinematic actress, and it is worth keeping an eye on her future roles.
Ms Catherine Claire brings to the role of Cecile the same subtle naivete, garrulity, and vulnerability which she mastered earlier this year in Arcadia, her greatest success. Her role here is less central than in the earlier production, and in some ways too similar. But her sensitivities, her fierce internal struggles after the abuses to which Mr Rackow’s character subjects her, are rendered with a befitting gentleness where it could so easily have grown melodramatic. This is especially true when she is in the bedroom with Valmont, the most disturbing scene in the play. Cecile is a minor character, but through Ms Claire’s efforts she becomes a great one.
Ms Honor Thompson channels the rich, glamorous appeal of the Parisian courtesan Emilie. Such roles can often be reduced stock characters, but Ms Thompson possesses the quality of stardom. She could not have played even the most legendary Parisian courtesan, La Dame aux Camellias, more alluringly and convincingly than she manages here. Her scenes with Mr Rackow are intimate as only the performances of a practised actor can be.
Mr Vasco Faria, though not onstage for long enough, plays the pivotal role of Danceny. He is charming and witty, his underhand lines and actions delivered with endearment. In his next performance he should be given more time to thrive.
Mr Archie Johnston, a singer and saxophonist of some note, is given the bit part of Azolan. He has some amusing exchanges with Mr Rackow but, like Mr Faria, would benefit from more stage time.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is running from 7-9 November at the Main Stage, Oxford Playhouse.
