'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' review — Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner are magnetic as the scheming libertines

Read our review of Christopher Hampton's play Les Liaisons Dangereuses, now in performances at the National Theatre to 6 June.

Summary

• Les Liaisons Dangereuses is revived at the National Theatre
• Christopher Hampton's play about seductive aristocrats is based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s novel
• Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner are magnificent as the manipulative leads
• Marianne Elliott's electrifying production also features Monica Barbaro

Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s scheming, seductive libertines, who first unleashed their sexual power games in his 1782 novel, have continued to titillate and scandalise across both stage and screen, from Christopher Hampton’s 1985 play, revived here, through to the Oscar-winning film and memorable modern update Cruel Intentions. Now it’s the turn of the magnetic Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner to inhabit these arch-manipulators in Marianne Elliott’s electrifying production.

Manville, quite rightly, gets the queenly star entrance, resplendent in a blood-red gown that signals mercilessness (sumptuous costumes by Natalie Roar). Her Marquise de Merteuil enlists the Vicomte de Valmont in a revenge plot to ruin the innocent Cécile de Volanges, for whom her lover has unforgivably abandoned her. Merteuil and Valmont also arrange a high-stakes wager: if he can seduce the famously virtuous married woman Madame de Tourvel, Merteuil will spend a night with him.

Rosanna Vize’s sleek design, which surrounds the action with mirrored walls, dials up the insidious complicity and moral corruption. Voiceless servants watch on, unwillingly conscripted into these debauched aristocrats’ ruinous intrigues, and the audience is likewise made a co-conspirator. Elliott’s astute production also emphasises the work’s inherent theatricality: the vain, preening Merteuil and Valmont are constantly playacting and staging “scenes”, both to further their plans and for one another’s amusement.

Turner, retaining his Irish accent, relishes Valmont’s flamboyant insincerity: the character is described as “conspicuously charming”. He’s a comic force when putting on a virtuous display for Tourvel, ostentatiously helping his elderly aunt into her chair, or responding to Tourvel’s rejection with pouting petulance. Turner also has a good line in wolfish lust, though stops short of convincing as a truly sociopathic predator, and is deeply affecting in the story’s latter stages as Valmont succumbs to heartbreak and despair.

Manville, who played Cécile in the original production, is a magnificent Merteuil. She declares to Valmont that she was born to “dominate your sex and avenge my own”, and it’s evident that her combination of cruel calculation and an impeccably maintained façade is how she survives in a patriarchal society which celebrates transgressive men but punishes women. Manville also illustrates Merteuil’s terror of obsolescence: in one silent scene she stands before the mirror in her underwear, assessing her appearance and whether her power is waning with age. (At least that’s presumably the intention: at 70, Manville remains stunningly beautiful.)

American actress Monica Barbaro, who was Oscar nominated for Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, makes a strong stage debut as the robustly principled but increasingly conflicted Tourvel. There is excellent support from Hannah von der Westhuysen as a coltish Cécile, Darragh Hand as her wide-eyed paramour, Cat Simmons as her uptight mother, and Gabrielle Drake as Valmont’s shrewd aunt.

Tom Jackson Greaves’s expressive ensemble choreography adds welcome dynamism, smouldering sensuality, and insight into the characters’ inner torment, as when the conflicted Tourvel is torn from her prayer by a parade of Valmont-esque men. There is a little too much of it in the latter stages, however, particularly a climax that needs only Manville to land with terrible force.

Hampton’s tweaked script gives the women slightly more agency, while maintaining the queasiness of the exploitation and continuing cycle of abuse. Valmont and Merteuil operating as a coercive double act brings to mind vile contemporary examples like Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Beneath the play’s Wildean bon mots, champagne and glamour, there lurks a dark heart and all-consuming destructive devastation.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is at the National Theatre to 6 June. Book Les Liaisons Dangereuses tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Photos by Sarah Lee)