Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Circle Theatre. Courtesans with heaving bosoms. Rakish men reclining on divans in doublets and Minnie Mouse shoes. Sly sexual intrigues in steamy boudoirs. Illicit groping on virginal white sheets. Mispronounced French names. It must be Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Again.
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Over the past decade it’s been difficult to escape modern adaptations of Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 erotic roman about deadly games of sexual one-upmanship, whether Stephen Frears’s or Milos Forman’s film versions or the plays penned by Heiner Muller and Christopher Hampton, presented at Center Theater and Interplay. Hampton’s adaptation, the one used by Circle Theatre, is neither well paced nor relevant, and it borrows from Thomas Middleton’s far superior Women Beware Women; but it does offer charismatic actors the chance to have nasty fun with juicy roles.
