Les Liaisons Dangereuses: A Publicity Photo, Some Acting Exercises, and a Duel

Here is our publicity photo, with Danceny, Merteuil, and Valmont.  Photo by Stephanie Pickard. (L to R: Andy Head, Carolyn Conover, Kirill Sheynerman, all MFA Acting Candidates)

The photo shoot was a lot of fun. These are not their actual costumes, and neither the sofa nor the screen is an actual piece of furniture used in the show.

And here's an excerpt from the press release (a collaborative effort between me and Dave Wendelberger, our department publicist and musical accompanist): "Featuring two graduate students in their culminating thesis roles (Carolyn Conover as La Marquise de Merteuil and Kirill Sheynerman as Le Vicomte de Valmont), Les Liaisons Dangereuses is sure to delight audiences with its manipulative characters who use love and passion in a twisted game designed primarily for their own pleasure. Originally a 1784 novel by Choderlos de Laclos, these iconic characters have inspired multiple screen and stage versions including Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Valmont (1989) and Cruel Intentions (1999). This stage adaptation by Christopher Hampton focuses on the romantic and sexual gamesmanship of the libertines and how they use others as pawns."

I have worked with Carolyn and Kirill this week, as our stage management team and all the undergraduates in the cast are working Haunted Aud, which is an enormous fundraiser that takes over the whole building and turns it into a haunted house experience.  (This year it is a haunted hotel, called "The Hostile.")  This also meant we didn't really have space to rehearse, so we rehearsed in my office.  On Wednesday they sat in armchairs and played the Merteuil/Valmont scenes as an Oscar Wilde play. Kirill said that this helped him figure out where the witty jabs and pokes are.  On Thursday the sat together on the sofa and played the scenes in close proximity to each other. We also went through the play backwards.  Both Carolyn and Kirill felt that this exercise helped to establish an intimate, light-hearted relationship between Merteuil and Valmont at the beginning of the play that is lost by the end of the play. 

Last Sunday we worked on transitions and fight choreography.  I took some pictures, but most of them did not turn out well.  Here's the best one:

One problem we have been having with the duel between Valmont and Danceny is that the script gives no reason for it.  We can assume it is a duel over Cecile, orchestrated by Merteuil.  (Valmont warns Dancency to beware of the Marquise de Merteuil, saying, "in this affair we are both her creatures.")  In the novel, Merteuil shows Cecile's correspondence about Valmont to Danceny, and this is what precipitates the duel.  In the play, Merteuil declares "War" on Valmont, and the duel immediately follows.  Our fight director Zev Steinberg has created some choreography that should help to clarify the characters' investments in the duel.

It was great to dig into the text with Carolyn and Kirill this week, and I'm looking forward to seeing our run-through in the space on Sunday, which is our last time in the Arena before load-in! The show opens two weeks from today.