Oh, Those Tangled Webs

Marie Antionette
Originally uploaded by metermaid138

Saturday, I went with my sister to see Laura Linney in Les Liaisons Dangereuses. While our seats were less than optimal and a few staging directions puzzled me, I very much enjoyed the production.

We had bad seats. This was clear immediately. No matter how glamorous being seated in an orchestra box sounds, it's not. It's even more not when seated in the last row in the box and even more not given some of the staging decisions that were made. In the best case scenario, the view is skewed from being at one extreme end of the stage. In the worst case, the view is skewed and obstructed. We got a nice helping of the worse case.

I am no theater expert. I've gone to a fair number of plays over the years and more this past year since I've moved back to the city. What I know, mostly, comes from my friend Jennifer who had studied the theater. I do know that it's usually a bad idea to have all the actors sitting down at once for long stretches and that the actors shouldn't turn their backs to the audience. On Saturday, I saw both.

Part of the issue was, again, our seating. Being at one end of the stage, there was more opportunity to see things from bad, odd angles and, for whatever reason, the action was weighted to our side of the stage, making it worse.

That being said, there was one extended moment when Laura Linney literally had her back to the stage- there was no other action apart from her- that seemed a strange choice, at least from my view.

As for the sitting, there was quite a bit of it. It didn't so much bother me except that I was aware of it as a construct so it pulled me out of the play a bit. Most of the times, the sitting was not necessary to the action as I saw it. It was just a decision that didn't quite work for me.

Those issues aside, I really enjoyed the play. I won't go into the plot which is a massive tangle and, being a classic, needs no introduction or review. I will say that, being so dialog driven, it does require agile performances to avoid bogging down. Luckily, the actors deliver.

The whole cast was excellent. The two leads (Linney and Ben Daniels) provided the dramatic and dynamic energy to keep everything in motion. Linney, in particular was tremendous as the icy queen of romantic real politic. She was, after all, the reason I had come and she was worth the price of admission.

The production went for a very minimalistic stage design, making excellent use of minimal props that, while few in number, were enough to evoke the atmosphere and period of the action. I'm fascinated by stage design and this one did much with little. I really appreciated that.

Despite my few problems, I think Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a great play definitely worth seeing, just do yourself a favor: stay away from the box seats. You've been warned.