Les Liaisons Dangereuses: First Rehearsal

Our first rehearsal went well. We started off with presentations from the designers.  Our design process began several months ago, and all the designs have gone through revisions and refinements.  I shared the above video with the design team at our first meeting, and I also shared it with the actors last night. It is a computer animation of an eighteenth-century gaming table that transforms for playing card games, chess, and backgammon, or for use as a writing desk.  Certainly the images of games and letter-writing are connected to the play.  As a director, I also find this game table a useful metaphor because so many of the characters are keeping secrets from one another, to be revealed in surprising ways at strategic moments.  

After our designers showed their work, we read through the script.  It was great to hear the scenes out loud, and especially to catch the sexual innuendo in the dialogue.  One of the actors commented that she had watched the film version (the one with Glenn Close and John Malkovich) and didn't find it nearly as funny as the play script.  It's interesting that Christopher Hampton wrote the screenplay for that film and based it on this play. The film restores Merteuil's punishment from the end of the novel, which is absent from the play. 

We are working around some actor conflicts, so we will rehearse tonight but then take a few days off before we start blocking Act I next week.  Tonight's rehearsal will delve into the relationships among Merteuil, Valmont, Cecile, and Danceny.

Here are a couple of photos from last night's read-through:

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.