See it if You like humor and back stabbing. The period clothing was gorgeous.
Don't see it if You don't like people who cheat on eachother.
See it if Love is the greatest pleasure second only to cruelty. J. Dench may be a national treasure but Janet McTeer is the crown jewels. Magnificent.
Don't see it if You want to miss the best revival since the original. Beautifully acted and painfully sensuous as falling candle wax. Schreiber smolders.
See it if You love masterful performances and incredible sexual tension!
Don't see it if You don't enjoy period dramas.
See it if You love a good cat and mouse game laced with love, deception, and manipulation with great staging and stellar acting.
Don't see it if You are uncomfortable with sex or have an aversion to period pieces.
See it if If you want to see a master in the art of seduction and the complexities of love and romance between the sexes.
Don't see it if You are thinking of entering a convent or monastery. Read more
See it if You want to be mesmerized by a cast of both vets + newcomers having a field day with the exquisite language of Christopher Hampton.
Don't see it if You're too busy over the next 2 weeks because it's closing. Although IMO you won't have better things to do than see this exquisite play. Read more
See it if You want to see an outstanding production of a fine play. You appreciate terrific, subtle, engrossing acting.
Don't see it if You are disinterested in intrigue and romance. You need a fast paced and action filled three hours at the theatre. Read more
See it if appreciate great acting, clever dialogue, great staging/costumes
Don't see it if get confused easily
"Ms. McTeer and Mr. Schreiber come across as magnificent bulls who have strayed into a Limoges china shop...Directed by Josie Rourke, this latest 'Liaisons' falls into the trap of such broadness early and lies there, gesticulating madly, for more than two and a half hours. Occasionally something like real feeling raises its startled head — especially in the second act, when Valmont falls in love despite himself. But such twinges of emotion are more disruptive than illuminating."
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"Ghostly and sensuous revival of Christopher Hampton’s hit play (based on the 1782 epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos)...Schreiber’s impassive libertine pairs nicely with McTeer’s vengeful, wicked widow. Director Josie Rourke opts for a languid pace as these two dance a minuet of wasted love and cruelty, a game in which death is the prize and the winner feels cheated."
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""A gorgeous but tiresome revival...Most of the laughs in the first half-hour were dead on arrival. That’s exactly backward; 'Liaisons' works better as a rollicking comedy that then pulls you up short, slowly implicating you in its cruelty. It doesn’t help that Rourke directs the ensemble to make the minimal set changes between scenes while prancing and singing as if at Fragonard garden party. It’s a triumph of the visual over the dramatic, or would be but for the actors fighting back."
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"Josie Rourke, the director, and Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber, the stars, seem not to realize that for most of its length, 'Liaisons' is a high comedy about two lost souls who end up in hell. The acting is consistently unsubtle and unfunny—Ms. McTeer and Mr. Schreiber both mistake archness for wit—and the direction and design are even more heavy-handed."
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"I don’t think the feminist angle is new, and certainly not new to Hampton’s terrific script, now three decades old. So Rourke’s production seems so much gilding of the lily, as it were, making the points with as heavy a hand as possible. It’s skillfully performed, sometimes visually arresting but mostly just plain crude...It’s an oddly off-putting mix of period melodrama and contemporary finger-wagging that left me unmoved and deflated."
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"Delivers all the thrill of watching paint dry...For this play to work there must be high stakes and hot chemistry between the Vicomte de Valmont (Schreiber) and Marquise de Merteuil (McTeer)...The elephant in the theater is that Schreiber is miscast...McTeer fares better. She is a striking presence on stage. She captures Merteuil’s sly cold-hearted calculation as well as her vulnerability. But eventually she becomes static and one-note. Dangerous liaisons? More like bland ones."
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"Under the direction of its artistic director, Josie Rourke, wit and style count more than passion...When Merteuil realizes that Valmont is no longer playing their game, McTeer’s silent reaction is devastating...Valmont has his own piercing insight...Schreiber gives it his best shot, but the sensitive feelings of a charming libertine don’t register in the same way that his more animal appetites do...But while director Rourke’s casting seems a bit bizarre, her staging is superb."
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"A blazing performance by Janet McTeer...Even if Liev Schreiber is ill-suited for the part of Valmont, Josie Rourke's evocative staging provides a compelling portrait of a dissolute aristocracy on the brink of devouring itself...All this would be just so much juicy bodice-ripping melodrama without Hampton's glittering dialogue and without Rourke's sound psychological investigation of the characters' motives...Visually, Rourke's production is both pared-down and sumptuous."
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