Sexual manipulation in 'Liaisons Dangereuses'

By Molly Gore

Littered with sex, sword fights, lust and tragedy, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" leaves no guilty pleasure unindulged.

The plot follows two ex-lovers, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, as they plot their revenge through the dashing de Valmont's seduction of a naïve, virginal Cecile de Volanges. De Valmont agrees to the scheme to avenge himself on the girl's mother for blackening his name to the woman designated as his latest sexual exploit, the chaste and married Madame de Tourvel. De Valmont's design is disrupted when he falls violently in love, causing Merteuil to twist the intrigue, and their fates, with jealousy and deceit.

"It's about love, but I think it's coming from a place that spurns love. You can tell by the end that Valmont has fallen in love with someone whom he had set out to conquer. You cannot avoid love when it happens," said the production's director, Tracy Ward.

Students might recognize the plot from the 1999 movie, "Cruel Intentions," which was based on Choderlos de Laclos's novel, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." The actors of this performance even seem to channel the mannerisms and speech patterns of the more modern movie's stars, Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The production does not shy away from the sexual innuendos or more obvious suggestions of sensual conquest, as is fitting for the principal characters who use sex as their primary weapon of coercion.

Junior Alex Tavera adopts the brashness and haughty self-assuredness of de Valmont well, and the seducer's moral transformation even better. He is joined in league with Hilary Tarver as the lustful and scheming Merteuil, whose strength and malice radiate off the stage through pensive, stern gazes and an eerie calmness.

Harpsichord interludes and elaborate period costuming frame the performance effectively, and serve to foil the aristocracy and the lower tiers of 18th-century French society. The accuracy is the result of the cast's work with period and movement specialists to choreograph the sword-fight scene and develop postures, gestures, conventions and language true to the era.

The language, adapted from the novel into a play by Christopher Hampton, is something to relish.

Insidiously disguised innuendoes are common in dialogue, but the cast, especially Tavera, is well trained in methods of subtle and usually comic emphasis and manages to catch the audience ear without overacting a bit. The comedy is strange, and the laughs come without realizing what exactly is comic about the manipulation of virtue or the near-rape of a virgin.

"I think it's a dark comedy, so I'm hoping for laughter in the beginning, and then the audience getting caught by their own laughter and how dark the places are that people go when based in love," said Ward.

A notable instance of this occurs when de Valmont essentially rapes de Volanges, and the next morning Merteuil chastises her for failing to see the educational value of the experience. We laugh at the absurdity in this, as well as de Volanges' childish air. In retrospect, one finds a gross kind of disconnect between the humor and the subject, and perhaps a lesson in the exploits of sexual manipulation and pure hedonism.

The cast works well as a whole, and even the movements of the servants during scene changes indicate the progress of plot and even principle in 18th-century French class divide. Opposite sexes flirt while moving pieces of the set, but in the second act, servants of the same sex begin seducing each other.

Liberal and sexually frank, the script is engaging to the end. Beyond the attraction of what is shocking and the aesthetic eye candy of elaborate costuming, there lies a display of fine acting and the illumination of a moral conundrum that will speak to the human side of anyone.

Contact Molly Gore at (408) 551-1918 or mgore@scu.edu.