Double Danger
Saw The Roundabout Theatre's production of
Les Liaisons Dangereuses . Pretty good stuff, with Laura Linney and Ben Daniels. And then, odd coincidence, we had just gotten digital cable hooked up in our lake house, and we saw that Dangerous Liasons was available for free. Interestingly, the movie played out the more romantic of the two; for whatever reason, this theatrical version makes the odd choice of playing the script for laughs. Daniels deserves a lot of credit for being on stage for just about the entire 3-hour running time, but his change from heartlessness to heart-brokenness is undermined by the whole casts' exaggerated slap-stick. Only Linney retains some semblance of propriety in the midst of the amorous cruelties. John Malkovich and Glenn Close are able to make the wrenching denouement work better simply by playing it straight.
Posted by netrc at August 18, 2008 04:28 PM