Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Playing Games

Tonight we start rehearsals for Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Christopher Hampton's adaptation of the 1782 novel by Choderlos de Laclos.  The show provides thesis roles for two of our MFA Acting students, who will play Merteuil and Valmont.  I feel very well-prepared to direct this play.

This summer I traveled to Paris for inspiration, and revisited some places I had been before.  One museum I saw for a second time was the Museum of Playing Cards in Issy-les-Moulineaux.

They have a nifty collection of playing cards from a variety of periods, and the presentation emphasizes the culture of card-playing as well as uses for cards beyond playing games.  Some of the more interesting sets were designed for teaching information about people and places while games were played. 

I also saw several museums that were new to me, including the Musee Nissim de Camondo, which was once the home of a collector who was obsessed with eighteenth-century furniture and had a particular interest in bringing together collections of furnishings that had been separated.  Later, after getting on a tram that was headed in the wrong direction, we decided to check out the Porcelain Museum in Sevres. The luxury of rococo porcelain fits very well with the world of this play.  I was particularly drawn to these two "trompe-l'oeil" pieces:

Possibly these dishes would have been used for serving nuts and asparagus? Or they could just be placed decoratively and then everyone would laugh at the unsuspecting guest who tried to pick up a porcelain walnut. 

The theme of game-playing is quite prevalent in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and these eighteenth-century objects suggest different ways in which game-play was deployed in French culture of the period.  I'm looking forward to beginning our rehearsals, and I think the idea of games will be central to our process.  For Valmont and Merteuil, we have already had some discussion about each of their scenes being a round in a game. Over the course of the play, we will keep track of who is winning and who is losing, and what tactics they use against their opponent.