Daniel Goldstein's stylish, sexy production of Christopher Hampton's play ''Les Liaisons Dangereuses" has more on its mind than style and sex. In Goldstein's hands, this isn't just a cruelly clever tale of revenge in the ancien regime; with a Chanel logo here, a Lagerfeld boot there, and broadly American accents all over the place, Goldstein and his team make sure we see the parallels between decadent 18th-century French aristocrats and those closer to our own lives.

The question, though, is just how precisely this production, which opened Wednesday night at the Huntington, means to sound those echoes. Sometimes the allusions feel more off-the-cuff amusing than richly enlightening. Are we supposed to think of rich Texans, perhaps? Or rich New Yorkers, or maybe even Parisians? Or just rich people in general? And once we've thought of them, what are we to do with the thought? To note that wealth creates cruelty and selfishness in any age, not just in prerevolutionary France, is hardly complex or profound, and to hint at parallels without really pushing to see how far they'll go can feel more superficial than smart.

Still, it's a thought worth having, and certainly one that's justified by Hampton's witty 1986 adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos's only novel. (The 1782 novel has also spawned several film versions, including the 1988 ''Dangerous Liaisons," which Hampton wrote.) As the Marquise de Merteuil inveigles her former lover, the Vicomte de Valmont, into seducing another ex's virginal fiancee -- only to have Valmont up the ante by promising another seduction, of a pious wife, if Merteuil will share her favors once more -- we can enjoy the game even as we nod sagely with Valmont's matriarchal aunt, who sees the whole intrigue as just one more example of how little the world changes.

As for the characters themselves, sometimes the costumes -- brilliantly conceived by newcomer Erin Chainani -- seem to have more on their minds than the actors do. Michael T. Weiss's Valmont and Tasha Lawrence's Merteuil are both suitably feline, by turns purring and clawing. But their malice too often devolves into something close to soap opera; one evil cackle or slangy ''gonna" too many, and you can find yourself yanked out of Paris into Dallas -- or, more precisely, ''Dallas," and its cheesy cousin, ''Dynasty." Lawrence, in particular, channels Joan Collins a little too often. And Weiss sometimes lets Valmont's vanity upstage his raw animal appeal; he should be more a barely tamed leopard than a preening cat.

Meanwhile, as the ingenue Cecile, Louisa Krause gives us Sandra Dee a la francaise. She's very amusing, particularly once she surrenders her virtue and discovers the joy of vice, but how did we get from the '80s to the '50s? Yvonne Woods provides a more subtle, understated vision of Valmont's ultimate conquest, the faithfully married Presidente de Tourvel. Prim, even awkward, at the outset, Woods slowly warms and blooms, though she's never a raging beauty. That gives Valmont's passion for her all the more unexpected force.

In supporting roles, Jennie Israel presents a cheerfully depraved courtesan (and, along with Krause, some of the nudity and adult situations the Huntington's website warns about); Alice Duffy is heartbreakingly wise as the aunt, and Jeff Barry makes a suitably bumbling Chevalier Danceny, another pawn in Merteuil's plot.

When it comes to support, though, the outstanding performance is by set designer James Noone. From the first sparkling image -- twinkling candles and weblike chandeliers, a delicately printed pastoral scene on a scrim, ''marble" walls that look as cold and synthetic as the marquise's heart -- to the last, chilling tableau, in which all the pieces fall with startling inevitability into place, Noone has given Goldstein the ideal board for his game. If only Goldstein had explored a little more thoroughly just what he wanted that game to be.