Dangerous Liaisons - Stratford Festival

presented in witty epigrammatic style. But they also
know that their conspiracy is rivalry. Inevitably, they
must confront each other.
At the climax of their relationship, Valmont,
claiming his reward, is told “to adopt a less marital
tone of voice,” for, as Merteuil says, she was
determined “never again to be ordered around.”
She flaunts her superiority: “Remember I’m better at
this than you are.” Valmont must accept this, but “It’s
always the best swimmers who drown.” Baudelaire,
commenting on the novel, remarked on all that
strategy to win a “frivolous prize.” Is it enough to
have played the game Dangerous Liaisons leaves
us in radical doubt about our alternatives.
Graham Roebuck is Professor Emeritus at
McMaster University.
Christopher Hampton
Playwright
Christopher Hampton was born in Portugal to
British parents. His father, an engineer, was posted
to various overseas locations, so Hampton lived
in Aden, Egypt and Zanzibar before beginning
boarding school in England at age 13.
While at Oxford, where he studied French and
German, he became interested in the theatre and
had his play When Did You Last See My Mother
produced by the Oxford University Dramatic
Society. He sent the play to an agent who passed
it on to the Artistic Director of the Royal Court
Theatre, where it was produced in 1966. That
production transferred to London’s West End,
making Hampton the youngest playwright to have
a play staged there in modern times.
After his graduation from Oxford in 1968, he
became the Royal Court Theatre’s resident
dramatist. His other plays include Total Eclipse
(1968), The Philanthropist (1970), Savages (1974),
Treats (1976), Tales from Hollywood (1984), White
Chameleon (1991) and The Talking Cure (2002).
He has translated the plays A Doll’s House, Tales
from the Vienna Woods and Tartuffe for screen
adaptations and translated several of the plays of
Yasmina Reza, including Art, for the stage.
His play Les Liaisons Dangereuses, an
adaptation of the novel of the same name by
Pierre-Ambroise-François Choderlos de Laclos,
premièred at the Royal Shakespeare Company in
1985. Here at Stratford, the play is being presented
under the same English title, Dangerous Liaisons,
that was used for the 1988 film version, for which
Hampton wrote the screenplay and for which he
won an Academy Award. He was nominated for
the same award for his screenplay for Atonement
(2007), based on the novel by Ian McEwan.
The Story
Former lovers le Vicomte de Valmont and la
Marquise de Merteuil maintain an alliance,
amusing each other by comparing notes on
their various sexual conquests.
To avenge herself on a lover who deserted
her, Merteuil asks Valmont to seduce the
man’s fiancée, the virginal Cécile Volanges.
Valmont declines, saying the task is beneath
him; besides, he is already preoccupied
with the seduction of a respectable married
woman, Mme de Tourvel. Valmont, however,
is also interested in renewing his sexual
relationship with Merteuil; she suggests to him
that she will consider this if he provides her
with written proof of his success with Tourvel.
While assiduously pursuing Tourvel, Valmont
decides to undertake the seduction of Cécile
as well, thus setting in motion a train of events
that will have unforeseen and disastrous
consequences.
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