This review is available online at: http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ci=&ch=entertainment&sc=theatre&sc2=reviews&sc3=performance&id=3787 Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Robert Nesti EDGE National Arts & Entertainment Editor Friday Jan 6, 2006 Michael T. Weiss and Tasha Lawrence share a conspiratorial moment in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," at the Huntington. (Source:Huntington Theatre Company) In the final moments of the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1987 production of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," there was the sound of a guillotine, suggesting the bloody fate that awaited the nobles whose sexual intrigues had made for a hugely entertaining, if nasty evening of theater. History, it seems, provided its own kind of cruel justice to the vicious games these aristocrats indulged in. There is no suggestion of a guillotine at the end of the Huntington Theatre Company's production of Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' novel; but if there were, it would no doubt be members of the creative team being led to the scaffold (metaphorically of course) for having conceived and (pardon the pun) executed this hapless production. Who would be first on the block? No doubt director Daniel Goldstein, whose overly busy staging mistakes stylish gimmickry for content. Second? Set designer James Noone for his piss-elegant rendering of a French drawing room dwarfed by a massive circular staircase that would be right at home in some regional theater production of "Phantom of the Opera." Third? Costume designer Erin Chainani whose tacky anachronisms (Chanel bags, red leather dominatrix jackets) are more obtrusive than imaginative. And fourth? Michael T. Weiss: his vacant, graceless performance suggests he's little more than a hot torso with a voice. Let the heads roll! Okay. I guess I didn't like it much; and I have to say that I enjoy playing Robespierre, here, especially since that original production, which starred the irresistible pairing of Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, was such a revelation. What made that production so memorable was the way director Howard Davies involved the audience in the deadly games of seduction a pair of soulless aristocrats play. Played against a simple background of fabric and screens suggesting an 18th century boudoir, Davies understood that intimacy was the key to the play's success. It would be hard, to be sure, to duplicate its icy, seductive power; but you'd never have any idea that it was even a very good play in the Huntington production. Flaccid, fussy, and overly-produced, who ever thought that sexual treachery could be so boring? It certainly wasn't back when Losclos' epistolary novel was published in 1782, scandalizing Parisian society. It had the effect that "Bonfire of the Vanities" had on New York at the time Hampton's play premiered - a novel that epitomized an epoch, in this case the waning days of the aristocracy immediately prior to the Revolution. Laclos' story told of the sexual games played between a predatory Casanova, the Vicomte de Valmont, and his equally duplicitous accomplice -- the Marquise de Merteuil. Together they seduce with cruel abandon, wagering on their successes without much sympathy for their victims. Hampton took Laclos' prose (a series of letters between the principals) and distilled it to a first-rate piece of stagecraft. (And film, it turned out, when his sterling, Oscar-winning adaptation turned out to be one of the best films of the 1980s.) And he did so with a firm understanding of its context -- pre-Revolutionary France; as well as showing how timeless deceitful behavior can be. Yet for all its dramatic treachery, the play unfolds with a good deal of cheeky humor. Hampton's script requires a droll delivery for its many double-entendres and aphorisms to come across without sounding like naughty one-liners from some upscale sit-com, which, unfortunately, is how they do in the Huntington production. But not only is the tone wrong, but so is the staging itself: Goldstein appeared more interested in moving the actors around Noone's massive set (replete with stairwells to both heaven and hell) than concentrating on precise performances that would serve the material, resulting in often largely nonsensical production. Scenes transpire on landings and seductions and swordfights on the stairwell, much to the chagrin of those sitting near me on the right side of the theater where entire sequences were obstructed from view. Goldstein moves his actors around the stage as if they were game pieces in an elaborate game of "Chutes and Ladders," up and down they go, pausing to argue, flirt, or tryst, and it all seems pointless. Goldstein nods towards the vehicle's 18th century roots, while modernizing it; and the effect is ridiculously misaccented. For a play that requires deft subtlety, every point is jack-hammered home; and the result never gets close to its inherent theatricality. Instead there's a veneer of sophistication. One thing Goldstein does get right is understand that this isn't a play about sex, but about power; so the fact that it is filled with sex that lacks passion, makes perfect sense. What it needs is an emotional connection between its two protagonists that's sadly missing here; but not for lack of trying on Tasha Lawrence's part. As the embittered aristocrat for whom sex is a means to an end, Lawrence gets it nearly right. She appropriately cool and remote as she plots her revenge on a petty bureaucrat she wants to see cuckolded; then burns with a smoldering passion as her plan goes awry. It's not so much her fault that there's so little connection between Weiss and herself. To be fair, this isn't exactly their fault: Goldstein often has them conversing at the audience, not at each other, or has them on opposite ends of the stage as if they were singing a love duet in some tacky operetta. Nonetheless Weiss is woefully miscast. His every line reading seems fraught with self-consciousness, and his preening matter suggests a metrosexual on his way to a costume party. He also lacks the physical grace as a seducer, and his scenes with the women are awkward, almost laughable. He cuts a handsome profile, but never gets under Valmont's skin, so his performance amounts to preening and posturing. There is also, alas, little to recommend in the supporting roles: Yvonne Woods starts off fine as the prim object of Valmont's seductive powers La Présidente de Tourvel, but there's little sense of the transformation necessary when she finally relents. Far worse, though, is Louisa Krause's Cécile Volanges who acts like Nicky Hilton playing Gidget, and dresses like her in a powder blue party dress that looks like a Project Runaway loser. Jeff Barry as Le Chevalier Danceny, the object of her affection, is geeky to the extreme, too geeky, it turns out. Move over, Napoleon Dynamite! There's fine work, though, from Alice Duffy as Valmont's knowing aunt and Ann Talman's as Cecil's gossipy mother; as well as Jennie Israel as Valmont's courtesan, despite having to play a post-coital moment lying prone on one of the lower steps on that damned stairwell. That damned stairwell dominates Noone's unusually flashy set, with its many candelabras embellishing a shiny, curved wall of a central drawing room. The sconces just seem like another unnecessary device to enhance the work's 18th century roots, but just looks overdone, like an entry way in some pretentious French restaurant. Little was skimped on Erin Chainani's anachronistic costumes, but they draw such attention to themselves that they become an unnecessary show onto themselves. When Lawrence appeared with her head in a turban looking like an extra in a Cher video of "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves" my companion turned to me and said, "This is so not . . . . right." And he was soooo right at that. Through February 2. At the BU Theatre, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA. Performances Tuesday - Thursday at 7:30 pm, Friday at 8 pm, Saturdays at 2 and 8 pm, and Sundays at 2 pm (7 pm performance 1/22 only.) Tickets are priced from $15 to $70 and are available at the box office, or at the Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts in the South End. For more info call 617-933-8600, or visit boston theatre scene web site. Robert Nesti can be reached at rnesti@edgeboston.com.