Les Liaisons dangereuses: The Schoolhouse Theater Gets Sexy

Les Liaisons dangereuses: The Schoolhouse Theater Gets Sexy

It’s not just the deliciously malevolent bed-hopping of 18^th century French nobility playing out at Croton Falls’ Schoolhouse Theater the past two weeks that is so darn sexy. It’s the sheer audacity of Producing Director Bram Lewis and Artistic Director Owen Thompson to stage Les Liaisons dangereuses in this intimate 99-seater on the border of Westchester and Putnam counties in the first place.

A cavalcade of patrician schtupping…

Start with the matter that Christopher Hampton’s scandalous drama about the tragic game of vengeance and seduction played by perfumed aristocrats at the expense of innocents (and ultimately to their own demise) requires fine costumery, elegant sets, and a heft of haughty visage from the cast. Then there’s the matter of staging a veritable cavalcade of patrician schtupping that raises the Egyptian cotton sheets to heights rarely seen in the theatre this far north of Broadway.

Not even the venerable Schoolhouse Theater, Westchester’s longest running equity theater, has undertaken such a heavy lift in its 30+ years. As Bram Lewis told us, “With nine characters, this production has the biggest cast of any of the plays The Schoolhouse has ever staged.”

Hats off to Director Owen (No Grinding) Thompson

Director Owen Thompson, dare I say, rises to the occasion with a fearless yet delicate direction that is an act of noblesse oblige unto itself. Especially in the bedroom scenes where Thompson gets the carnal message across with a judicious amount of motion, but (mercifully) no grinding. Thank you, Owen.

Equally transcendent are the performances of the lustfully stoic, Elizabeth Rodgers as Le Marquise de Merteuil, the puppetress who makes everyone, let’s just say “dance;” Patrick Zeller, who was all head and hips in his portrayal of Le Vicomte de Valmont—the ruthless Lothario whose strings Merteuil pulls to set the sexual romp in motion; Elizah Knight as Mademoiselle de Tourvel, a tragic victim of Valmont’s hip shake; and Kate Day Magocsi (Cécile Volanges) who learns to love Valmont’s Latin lessons after the trauma of his initial sexual assault has subsided.

Finally, the costume design by Nancy Nichols and the set design by Tony Andrea—the likes of which are rarely seen in Westchester—transported me, as they were meant to do, to a different time and place. I confess my mind wandered at times, thinking, “How did they get the money for those costumes?”

Go for the sexual intrigue, stay for the sword fight?

There are only five performances left this week. Run, don’t walk, as they say on the Great White Way, to see this production of Les Liaisons dangereuses  (complete with sword fight) at The Schoolhouse Theater in Croton Falls. For a fun weekend, double-down on the depravity of pre-Revolutionary France with a screening of the triple Academy Award-winning 1988 movie with Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer and Keanu Reeves after the Schoolhouse performance.

Perhaps you will marvel as we did that despite their reputation as sophisticated lovers, the inventors of the French kiss are no better at love than they are at war—at least since Napoleon.