a drama full of romantic intrigue
“Pleasure is the only thing that unites the sexes, and yet it isn´t a sufficient basis for any relationship.” Two ex-lovers – the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont – are brought together again by their desire for revenge. The marquise wants to punish her treacherous lover, Count de Gercourt, for wanting to marry the young and virtuous Cécile de Volanges. The plan is to have Valmont seduce Cécile. Valmont also wants to take revenge on Cécile´s mother for warning Madame de Tourvel, whom he is trying to seduce, against his debauchery. He thus takes on the role of the love trainer of young Cécile, even though it complicates his own plans with his new lover a lot. However, he has one condition – if he is successful with Madame de Tourvel and supports this with written proof, he will be rewarded with a night spent together with the marquise. Both of these ruthless manipulators of human feelings thus start a series of various intrigues in which they play games with the feelings of others – however, it gradually becomes clear that their own hearts are more fragile than they thought…
The famous epistolary novel by French writer Choderlos de Laclos from 1782 has seen many theatre and film adaptations. The most successful of these is generally considered to be that produced by English playwright Christopher Hampton for London’s National Theatre in 1985. He took all the emotions in Dangerous Liaisons that have controlled people since time immemorial - love, jealousy, humiliation, passion – and distilled them into brilliant, highly theatrically effective situations. Now this exceptional drama is also coming to our theatre.
