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The Director
 

Fran Gebhard, Director
es Liasions Dangereuses is based on an obscure novel of sexual intrigue amongst the upper class in the decade preceding the French Revolution. Although it is a morbid, chilling tale of debauchery and deceit, playwright Christopher Hampton manages to make his adaptation a cold-blooded comedy.

When Chonderlos de Laclos published his epistolary novel in 1782 it caused a scandal. The book was officially banned by decree of the Royal Court in 1824. Needless to say it was a smashing success.

In 1959, a thirteen-year-old Christopher Hampton snuck into an adult movie theatre to see Roger Vadim's adaptation of the novel. The film was forgettable but not to Hampton for whom it became an obsession. Hampton revisited the novel when he was a scholar of French and German at Oxford. He read and reread the novel even convincing his professors that he should do a project on why pre-Revolutionary French authors wrote such sexually charged novels. It wasn't until the early 1980's that Hampton finally tackled the novel, working from the French, adapting it into an award winning play and later film.

The play centers on two ruthless protagonists - the Vicompte de Valmont and the Marquisse de Merteuil who set out to work their revenge, to debauch, and to use love as a deadly weapon. They wage their campaigns in 18th century boudoirs and drawing rooms, preying on the vulnerability of innocent victims while struggling for amoral supremacy. The game is serious and extremely competitive. The rules are articulated by Merteuil, "Win or Die."

Merteuil and Valmont are compelling, irresistible villains who draw us in, and make us participants in their intrigues. Why are we fascinated with these rich, bored, appalling creatures? They mesmerize us. It's like watching a car crash, we can't avert our eyes. Are they anomalies of the 18th century? Certainly not all malicious, self-serving behaviour was swept away with the Revolution. Can we sit back and watch their vicious crimes of the heart with detached calm? I think, that while we live in a world where abuse of power and sexual manipulation exists, there is a contemporary resonance. These words are said by men to women and women to men everyday, perhaps not as wittily or as charmingly as Hampton's characters, but bargains are being struck.

Fran Gebhard
Director

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