Off Broadway

Quartett

(BAM Harvey Theater; 874 seats; $75 top)

By SAM THIELMAN

A Brooklyn Academy of Music presentation of a play in one act by Heiner Muller, translated by Jean Jourdheuil and Beatrice Perregaux, based on the novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Conceived and directed by Robert Wilson.
 
Merteuil ........................... Isabelle Huppert

Valmont ...................... Ariel Garcia Valdes

With: Louis Beyler, Rachel Eberhart and Benoit Marechal.

 

Near the end of avant-garde auteur Robert Wilson’s rethinking of Heiner Muller’s "Quartett," as Isabelle Huppert turns away from the audience and slowly walks toward the spotless white backdrop, a fishtank with two live goldfish moves across the blank stage. At the performance reviewed, one of the fish, obviously taken with Wilson’s incredible visual ingenuity, hung out near the top of the tank, enjoying the view. The other one, presumably stunned by the baffling spectacle, fled to the bottom and hid until its journey was over. Auds are likely to react in similar fashion.

In 1982, Muller adapted "Quartett" from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ epistolary novel "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," also the basis for Christopher Hampton’s play (and its subsequent film adaptation), recently revived on Broadway. The novel also provided the plot for trashy teen sex comedy "Cruel Intentions," and maybe a dozen other adaptations in various media. So there are clearly a lot of ways to go with the story of two vicious ex-lovers, Merteuil (Huppert) and Valmont (Ariel Garcia Valdes), and the innocent young folks upon whom they prey.

From the moment Huppert first stalks gingerly across the stage, Wilson’s production is hypnotizing. The entire space becomes Merteuil and Valmont’s playground, and a gesture or harsh word from one of them can have amazing physical consequences. Huppert pulls her hands apart in a ripping motion; suddenly there’s a long white tear in the theater’s black space. She opens her mouth to speak and out comes an electronic scream that sounds uncannily like Godzilla.

A lot of this, believe it or not, is pretty funny. Wilson and sound designers Jean-Louis Imbert and Thierry Jousse have put microphones on the entire cast, so we never know when, say, someone will make a surprising noise by sticking out his tongue, or someone else will seem to be laughing in two voices at once.

Since the novel is written as letters from one amoral seducer to another, all the dialogue in "Quartett" belongs to Huppert and Valdes, but Wilson’s production isn’t just about Muller’s poetry. Rachel Eberhart and Benoit Marechal play Merteuil’s virginal niece Cecile and her fiance Raphael Danceny, respectively, and while neither performer has any lines, both exude an innocence (eventually corrupted and subverted, of course) that drives Valmont crazy.

"Ah, the void within me!" he moans, sick of not sleeping with Cecile. "It grows and engulfs me, needing its daily victim."

What’s surprising about Wilson’s casting is that no one ever takes on the role of Madame de Tourvel, the other woman Valmont desires and eventually falls in love with. We see Cecile, all long legs and blond hair, but not the woman Valmont believes might save him.

There are times during "Quartett" when it just stops making sense. Why are people hopping like frogs, for example? Is the play’s admittedly gorgeous introductory sequence a miniature of the story? If so, who on earth is Louis Beyler supposed to be playing?

Helpfully, Wilson has painted the major points in broad strokes, comprehensible even if you’re glancing up at the French-to-English supertitles (which you won’t ever want to do — too much of the production is unexpected and beautiful to look away). If it weren’t clear from his entrance that Valmont, clothed in red and made up like Satan, probably doesn’t have much to look forward to in the afterlife, it’s very clear by the end.

But the center of the production is the implacable Merteuil. In Huppert’s performance, she has made her peace with damnation at the play’s outset and is eager to take as many people with her as she can. At times, she speaks Valmont’s lines with him and for him — "playing him" in every sense of the phrase.

Wilson and co-designer A. J. Weissbard have lit the entire show in incredible hues, but when Huppert steps out into the void at the end, the only appropriate color is black. It’s a fitting tribute to the writer’s poetic brilliance, and one that never overwhelms the text, as arresting as the stage pictures always are. Instead, it’s the kind of tribute only Wilson could make: he liked Muller’s play so much he built a world for it.

Sets, Wilson, Stephanie Engeln; costumes, Frida Parmeggiani; lighting, Wilson, A. J. Weissbard; original music, Michael Galasso; sound, Jean-Louis Imbert, Thierry Jousse; hair and makeup, Luc Verschueren; production stage manager, R. Michael Blanco. Opened Nov. 4, 2009. Reviewed Nov. 5. Running time: 1 HOUR, 40 MIN.