Play

Les Liaisons dangereuses

1 upcoming performance in New York

First published in 1782, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s *Les Liaisons dangereuses* is an epistolary drama of seduction and revenge among the French aristocracy on the eve of the Revolution. Its plot turns on letters traded by the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, using intimacy as leverage and other people as instruments. In New York, the best-known stage landmark is Christopher Hampton’s adaptation, which arrived via Broadway in 1987 after a London run. The work’s calm surfaces make its cruelty feel methodical rather than impulsive.