UNLV’s ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ not so dangerous

Kimberley McGee

Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 9:29 a.m.

Chris Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," directed by Robert Brewer, opened Thursday night at UNLV's Judy Bayley Theatre. It's plot takes audiences to the excess of 18th century society of sex, games and power wielded for the sake of entertainment.

The dialogue is believable, although delivered somewhat stilted. La Marquise de Merteuil, played somewhat passionately by Sheilagh Polk, delivers her biting lines best when alone with Le Vicomte de Valmont, played convincingly by Jim Ballard. The two main characters, Polk and Ballard, dance around each other with words and innuendos.

The play's occasional nudity doesn't serve its purpose and seems to just be there, poking out of an otherwise satisfactory scene. As Emilie -- played nastily by Barbara Rollins -- is tossed about the bed by Valmont in the third scene, the words are more sexual than what's happening onstage. In Act One, Scene Eight, however, Valmont successfully seduces Cecile, played winningly by Jill Michael.

In tumultuous Act Two, Scene Six, Ballard and Hughes interact brutally, as the biting words call for. Hughes falls to the floor, her lover a farce, her belief in love ruined. The emotion of the characters is captured only in that scene, surprising the audience with its in- your-face ferocity. Unfortunately the audience, who had tittered through the evil so far, didn't seem to know how to feel. If the cast had let us feel anger and betrayal a bit more, we would have been moved. As it was, the scene ended emotionally for the players, wonderingly for the audience.

In Scene Eight of Act Two, Ballard duels to the death, and the set truly hits the mark. The set -- mirrored walls for most of the play -- segues Valmont's realization of his love and his death. Meanwhile, La Presidente de Tourvel, played by Jocelyn Pryde Hughes, is is seen through the eerie, now translucent walls, screaming as she slowly dies in a convent. The scene connects the lovers in their pain and loss more than at any other point in the play. Hughes is a little too fragile, annoyingly so, and the passion for her character from Ballard seems below his Valmont's obvious capabilities.

If nothing else, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" is a visual beauty.