Word: valmont
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...most despicable (and most entertaining) characters in the play are La Marquise de Merteuil (Lucia Brawley '99) and Le Vicomte de Valmont (Bryan Leach '00). These two connivers, who are obviously meant for each other, spend much of the show trading quips. Their relationship is based on a twisted love: rather than acting on their mutual feelings, they compete against each other. Merteuil and Valmont make a wager that involves deceiving and seducing most of the other members of the cast. The problem is that they cannot avoid becoming entangled in their own web, and their game becomes dangerous...
Their pawns include La Presidente de Tourvel (Nikki Columbus '97), a virtuous married woman whom Valmont successfully seduces and then rejects. Valmont delights in corrupting virtue with sensual sinfulness. Cecile Volanges (Sara Boyle '00) and Madame de Volanges (Anna Lewis '99), who are embroiled in their own mother-daughter struggle over whether Le Chevalier Danceny (Daniel Sussner '00) is suitable marriage material for Cecile, also fall victim to Valmont and Mertueil's scheme. Madame de Rosemonde (Vanessa Reisen '97), Valmont's aunt, possesses the deepest understanding of the play's web of deceit. In a downhearted acceptance of the production...
Leach gives an effective performance as the dastardly Valmont. Remarkably, for much of the play there is something likable, and even enviable, about his character. Brawley is also well cast as La Marquise de Mertueil, displaying her character's sinful grace as well as the heartache that has made her so hardened. The scenes with Leach and Brawley, filled with snappy retorts and romantic tensions, are especially entertaining. The rest of the cast members fill their niches well, with Anna Lewis and Vanessa Reisen giving standout performances in smaller roles...
...play's energy only slows down towards the end, when Valmont and Mertueil's scheme starts to wreak havoc in their own lives. Valmont is torn between La Presidente de Tourvel, whom he claims to have fallen in love with, and La Marquise de Mertueil, who holds considerable power over him. The sense of unspoken attachment between Leach and Brawley is perhaps too good, because this turn of events does not seem believable. There is a fatal swordfight between Valmont and Le Chevalier Danceny that continues for too long, stretching out the play's final scenes when they should...
...production, which will be telecast nationally over PBS on Oct. 17, is simple but handsome, relying on mirrors and projections to make its effects. Notable performances by the mostly American cast include Renee Fleming's poignant Tourvel, Mary Mills' tender Cecile (the 15-year-old girl "ruined" by Valmont's depredations) and Johanna Meier's stately Madame de Rosemonde, Valmont's doting aunt. In the pit, Scottish-born Donald Runnicles leads with authority...