On some fairly slender evidence, you can confidently conclude that Queen City Theatre Company artistic director Glenn T. Griffin is obsessed with Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He directed it as an undergrad at UNC Charlotte and again as artistic director of Off-Tryon Theatre Company during their 2000-2001 season.
Now Griffin is taking another pass at the dark sexual intrigue via an all-male adaptation by Tom Smith of the Choderlos de Laclos novel. To make this rad alteration more credible, Smith transported Dangerous from 18th century France to 21st century England. Griffin is less faithful to the geography than to the era, which remains slightly speckled with the playwright’s ambiguities.
In the intervening years between Griffin’s immersion in the Christopher Hampton hetero adaptation (Hampton won the 1988 Oscar for his screenplay) and the gay Smith revisit, there was a broad hint that Griffin hadn’t gotten the story out of his system. His personal e-mail address included the anti-hero’s name, Valmont.
If you saw Griffin’s Liaisons concept in 2001, there are obsessive elements onstage in the current Spirit Square production that will remind you of the NoDa production. Once again, a chessboard motif dominates the set design. More startling, Salvador Garcia’s performance as Marcus bears an uncanny resemblance to Sheila Snow’s portrayal of the Marquise de Merteuil at the Cullman Avenue quonset. It’s as if, in crafting his extraordinary Charlotte debut, Garcia watched film of Snow. Obsessively.
Thankfully, many things are vastly different in Dangerous, beginning with Kristian Wedolowki and his Uruguayan accent as Alexander Valmont. Oozing delicious contradictions, Wedowlowki gives us a puffy satyr on the verge of midlife, sure of his seductive skills yet still audacious enough to tackle a challenge that may be beyond him — if only because of the tight deadline Marcus imposes on Valmont for completing the conquest.
Valmont’s air of insouciance is manifest in his dilatory pursuit of Jason, the personal trainer targeted by Marcus. Alex has a more formidable quest of his own: deflowering Trevor, a candidate for the priesthood. The gender switch, along with Smith’s plot alteration, heightens the degree of difficulty for the latter-day Valmont. The chaste Madame de Tourvel, you may remember, merely had to betray her husband in yielding to the Vicomte. God and the closet weren’t in the equation.
Costume designer Alfie B. Griffin adds one last flourish of lagniappe to the game. Laying siege to Trevor for the first time, Valmont wears a sleeveless muscle T-shirt covered entirely with charcoal drawings of the Virgin Mary, complementing an outfit — and makeup — and earrings — with a distinctively Goth flavor. Outrageous decadence.
There’s plenty of lip-locking in Glenn Griffin’s staging and plenty of what gymnasts call floor work, especially by the predators. Wantonness often alternates with formalized geometric movement from the actors, both modes beckoning our attention to the chessboard.
Among the touches I enjoyed in Smith’s retelling were his use of cellphones, texting, e-mails, and — most devilishly — webcams for spreading the antiheroes’ venom. Unexpectedly, these high-tech touches bring us back full-circle to the original epistolary structure of Liaisons. We don’t get the unforgettable tableau of a treacherous cad writing a love letter on a confederate’s rump, but that’s showbiz.
Aside from Wedolowski and Hank West, the other names in the cast are likely to be unfamiliar. Not to worry, everybody onstage — hunters and quarry alike — is excellent. Scott Flanary as Trevor is remarkably adept at keeping his inner slut in check, actually radiating considerable spirituality as he gradually succumbs to Valmont’s outrageous overtures. As the simpler of Valmont’s conquests, Steve Buchanan makes webcam patsy Jason’s gullibility a byproduct of his wholesome, healthful inexperience.
West takes a surprisingly stoical view of Rosemonde, not at all effeminate in his matchmaking ministrations on behalf of Jason and Daniel. As the musical director for whom Jason is personally training (with lascivious lessons from Valmont), Daniel isn’t much of a role for Justin Dionne to sink his teeth into, but he certainly captures the preppy essence. Landon, Valmont’s mercurial stooge (and eventual castaway), is another matter. Joshua Bistromowitz immerses himself in the scamp with such gusto that I suspect he is paying for the privilege.
This article appears in Apr 7-14, 2009.
