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Shakespeare & Company Presents ” Les Liaisons Dangereuses”
Posted by Gail M. Burns - December 2009
“He’d call me false and faithless and I’ve always had a weakness for those two words;
next to cruel, they’re the nicest words for a woman to hear, and not so hard to earn.” Marquise de Merteuil
Shakespeare & Company Heats up the Stage this winter with
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
January 29 – March 21
{Lenox, MA}—Love is the ultimate weapon. The winter season is here, and Shakespeare & Company’s Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer directs Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons), Christopher Hampton’s wickedly entertaining story of love, indulgence, betrayal and corruption. Full of devious plotting, sexual intrigue and morally ambiguous motivations, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) was ahead of its time as an epistolary novel penned by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in 1782 and still may be ahead of its time today. It’s a rich and deviously delightful story, and as sumptuously guilt-inducing as a decadent chocolate you just can’t resist. The novel has proven to be fruitful material for adaptation, this play won the prestigious Olivier and Tony Awards, and the Stephen Frears-directed film earned the 1988 Academy Award for Best Film. French poet Charles Baudelaire summed up the story as “L’amour de la guerre et la guerre de l’amour”— the love of war and the war of love.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) plays in the 190-seat Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre from January 29 through March 21 Press opening is February 6. Curtain times are 7pm on Fridays and Saturdays (plus 2pm matinees every Saturday beginning February 13) and 2pm on Sundays. Tickets range from $12 to $48 with multiple discounts available, including discounts for Groups, Students, Seniors, and the very popular 40% Berkshire Resident Discount. The Bernstein is wheelchair accessible and hearing aid assisted. Contact the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or boxoffice@shakespeare.org to order tickets or learn more about discount availability, or order tickets from www.shakespeare.org. The Bernstein Theatre is wheelchair-accessible.
Writing on the eve of the French Revolution, de Laclos worked under the patronage of France’s most powerful aristocrats—Marie Antoinette was said to be a big fan of the book—but his morally ambiguous work was re-interpreted by some critics after the French Revolution as a subversive dig at the Ancien Regime. No matter; his intentions remain unclear. What is vividly clear, however, is the world he created—a wickedly devilish, amoral playground in which love and seduction are mere amusements, toyed with for advantage and pleasure until someone else is left to suffer the consequences.
Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer directs the 10-member cast, featuring Elizabeth Aspenlieder as the Marquise de Merteuil (2009 Elliot Norton Award winner for “Outstanding Solo Performance” for her turn in last winter’s Bad Dates), Josh Aaron McCabe as the Vicomte de Valmont (who received rave reviews for his tour de force in The Hound of The Baskervilles), and newcomers Lydia–Burnet Mulligan as Cecile and Kelly Galvin as Madame de Tourvel. The cast also includes S&Co. actors Eric Corbett Williams (Mad Pirate and the Mermaid), Burkhard Jadow (Toad of Toad Hall, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Scapin, Macbeth, Comedy of Errors), Alexandra Lincoln (Twelfth Night, The Canterville Ghost), Scott Renzoni (Cindy Bella, Preludes), Enrico Spada (Hamlet, Preludes), and Renée Margaret Speltz (Cindy Bella, The Tamer Tamed, Comedy of Errors). This is Packer’s first time directing in the intimate Bernstein Theatre and her first modern play since 2005’s world premiere of Joan Ackermann’s Ice Glen. Costumes are designed by Govane Lohbauer; other designers TBA.
“This is the ultimate portrayal of libertinism, and it’s a mystery as to whether de Laclos meant to celebrate this behavior, condemn it, or perhaps simply to hold the mirror up to nature,” says Packer. “He brings to the forefront the absurdities of a heartless and self-serving society, the attitude towards women and their place in this time. It will be a heartbreaking and provocative journey for us all to undertake and I am so pleased to have Elizabeth and Josh as my leads to anchor the story and give it flight.”
De Laclos’ novel has proven to be fertile ground for adaptation. In 1986 British playwright Christopher Hampton created the version S&Co. is performing, causing an immediate sensation and winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. It was also nominated in 1987 for the Tony Award for Best Play, and again in 2008 for the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play. The 1988 film, based on the play and starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich, netted a stunning seven Academy Award nominations, winning three times.
The story: Set at the height of aristocratic decadence just before the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses begins as the Marquise de Merteuil decides to construct a little intrigue for the amusement of herself and her former lover, the Vicomte de Valmont. The Marquise plots to have a young girl, Cécile Volanges, who has just left the convent so that she can be married to the Comte de Gercourt (the Marquise’s former lover), seduced by Valmont, to create a scandal and humiliate Gercourt. Valmont accepts the Marquise’s challenge but already has his eyes on another victim, the very religious Madame de Tourvel, the chaste wife of a member of Parliament. But, never one to refuse a challenge, Valmont suggests that he and the Marquise enter into a slightly different bet: if he can obtain written proof that he has slept with Tourvel, the Marquise must give herself fully to him.
Meanwhile, Cécile meets the charming and naive Chevalier Danceny, who becomes Cécile’s music teacher and slowly, with some coaching from the Marquise de Merteuil, the two young people fall in love. At the same time, Valmont is in the country at his aunt’s estate trying to win Tourvel’s heart. Then, as coincidence would have, Cécile’s mother, who corresponds regularly with the Tourvel, happens to say some rather unflattering things about Valmont in a letter which Valmont just happens to steal and read. And thus it is that Valmont is encouraged to take the Merteuil’s challenge and seduce the little Volanges as revenge for her mother’s only too accurate depiction of him.
Cécile is persuaded to enter into a form of student/teacher relationship with Valmont, and for a while she is actually being courted by Danceny and ‘loved’ nightly by Valmont. Valmont is also able to win the heart of Madame de Tourvel. However, the Marquise de Merteuil is not satisfied. Rather than encourage the Valmont to meet the conditions of their original agreement, she belittles him for having fallen in love with the Tourvel. Valmont’s pride is damaged and to avoid tarnishing his reputation as a good-for-nothing player, he suddenly and harshly ends it with Tourvel. Cécile doesn’t end up much better—after a particularly rough night in Valmont’s room, she miscarries his child. The story quickly spirals out of control when Tourvel, full of grief, loneliness and shame removes herself to a convent. Merteuil and Valmont can’t seem to reconcile their differing views on who has ‘won’ their bet and agree to go to ‘war’ with one another. The lovelorn Danceny learns that Valmont seduced Cécile and challenges him to a duel – it is only when Valmont hands over his correspondence he’s had with the Marquise to Danceny that some form of justice is revealed and what began as an delicious amusement deepens into a tragedy.
BIOS:
Tina Packer* Director, also Founding Artistic Director of Shakespeare & Company, which she created in 1978. Ms. Packer recently played to critical acclaim in the role of Martha in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Viriginia Woolfe with Boston’s Publick Theatre. Ms. Packer also played the title role in Shirley Valentine; Gertrude in Hamlet this past season with S&Co and will be performing in her new play, Women of Will: Parts I-V with Colchester Repertory in England in the spring. At Shakespeare & Company, Tina has directed over 50 productions. Selected credits include, All’s Well That Ends Well, King John, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Coriolanus, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Henry IV part 1, the world premieres of The Scarlet Letter by Carol Gilligan, Joan Ackermann’s Ice Glen, the world premieres of Summer, adapted from Edith Wharton by Dennis Krausnick, and The Fly-Bottle by David Egan. As an actor she’s played Gertrude in Hamlet, Cleopatra in Antony & Cleopatra, Lettice in Lettice and Lovage, Edith Wharton, and Shirley Valentine numerous times to critical acclaim. Ms. Packer trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she won the Ronson Award for Most Outstanding Performer. In Britain, she was an associate artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company, performed in the West End, and acted with repertory companies in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leicester, and Coventry. She also worked for the BBC and ITV television companies and in film. As an actor in Great Britain, she worked with John Barton, Peter Hall, John Schlessinger, Ian McKellan, Paul Scofield, Janet Suzman, and Ian Richardson, among others. As Artistic Director of the Boston Shakespeare Company, she directed Master Harold and the Boys, Rat in the Skull, and Observe the Sons of Ulster. At regional theatres, Tina has directed Richard III, King John, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Othello, Scheherezade, and The Winter’s Tale. She is the subject of the WGBH documentary Sex, Violence and Poetry: A Portrait of Tina Packer, and Helen Epstein’s biography The Companies She Keeps. In 1994-95 she received Guggenheim and Bunting Fellowships to create and perform her unique trilogy of work, Women of Will. Tina holds honorary doctorates of letters from Emerson College, Trinity College, the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Salem State College and Lesley University. She was named 1998 Woman of Achievement by the Berkshire Business & Professional Women’s Organization. She was the 1999-2000 Arts Recipient of the Commonwealth Award, the state’s highest honor for excellence in the arts. In 2004 she was given the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Travel & Tourism Leadership Award. She is the recipient of more than 20 other awards, honors, and fellowships, and has lectured or been the keynote speaker at over 30 colleges and universities. Tina and Shakespeare & Company actors have collaborated with various regional theatres and symphonies, including the Boston Pops 1999 concert, Brush UpYour Shakespeare, for PBS-TV. In 2001 Tina’s book, Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership & Management, co-authored with Columbia Business School professor John O. Whitney, was published by Simon & Schuster. Three years ago Scholastic published her most recent book, the award-winning Tales from Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s stories for children. She is drafting another book that documents the aesthetic and teaching techniques of Shakespeare & Company. Along with lecturing and directing at Columbia, Harvard, and M.I.T. Tina continues to spearhead the international effort to reconstruct a historically accurate 1587 Rose Playhouse, where Shakespeare’s plays were first performed, in Lenox, MA.
Christopher Hampton (Playwright, Les Liaisons Dangereuse) is an Academy Award-winning British playwright, screenwriter and film director. His screenplay for the 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons, adapted from his play, won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Other works include: Sunset Boulevard (for Andrew Lloyd Webber) and the screenplays for Atonement and The Quiet American.
Elizabeth Aspenlieder* is now in her fourteenth season with S&Co where she will take on the role of the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Elizabeth recently won an Elliot Norton Award for Best Solo Performance for her role in Bad Dates at S&Co and Merrimack Rep in May of 2009. Other credits with S&Co: Bad Dates (Haley Walker), The Ladies Man (Suzanne), Othello (Bianca), Rough Crossing (Natasha), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Ford); Ice Glen (Dulce); The Comedy of Errors (Adrianna), Much Ado About Nothing (Margaret), King Lear (Regan), Ethan Frome (Mattie), The Valley of Decision (Fulvia), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Hermia), A Tanglewood Tale (Sophia), Twelfth Night (Antonia), Richard III (Anne), All’s Well That Ends Well (Helena), Wit (Susie), The Winter’s Tale (Perdita), Mercy (Annie), Much Ado About Nothing (Ursula), and Pericles (Thaisa/Diana). Regional: Boston Theatre Works: Angels in America (Angel/Nurse) and Emilia in Othello (both productions were also nominated for Elliot Norton Awards for Best Ensemble); Mixed Company: Ten Minutes in the Berkshires Play Festival(s). Canada: Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Alma), Brighton Beach Memoirs (Nora), Fifth of July (Shirley), Ludlow Fair (Rachel). Independent Films: Trigger Finger; Seriously Twisted. Elizabeth also provides the voices for commercials and animated features.
Josh Aaron McCabe* ( fourth season) Most recently played Sherlock Holmes in the critically acclaimed box office hit The Hound of the Baskervilles. Upcoming:Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. S&Co: The Host of the Garter in Merry Wives of Windsor and the title role in the New England Tour of Macbeth. Josh performed Off-Broadway playing the role of Mike in the New York Times-acclaimed Peep Show at Actor’s Playhouse. Regional theatres include Madison Repertory Theatre: The Nerd (Axel Hammond) & A Moon for the Misbegotten (T. Steadman Harder), Milwaukee’s Chamber Theatre: Misalliance (Johnny Tarleton) & The Moonlight Room (Adam Levy), Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati: More Fun Than Bowling (Jake), and most recently the world premiere of The Dig (Tom, Peddler) at Renaissance Theaterworks in Milwaukee. He has played principal roles in national commercials, as well as appearing in various daytime serials and Saturday Night Live. Josh is honored to be a part of S&Co’s Education Dept, directing/ teaching in Fall Festivals of Shakespeare, Middle School Residencies, Young Company and Shakespeare in the Courts. Josh received his MFA in Acting from The University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a proud member of AEA, AFTRA and SAG.
*Members of Actors Equity Association