RuEn

Dangerous ties
Old Stage, Green Hall

Running time: 3 h 20 m, prime June 11, 2022
Ticket price range 2000—30000 rub.
  • Author —
  • Director — Egor Peregudov
  • Designer — Vladimir Arefiev, Damir Ismagilov, Irina Belyakova
  • Translator — Nadezhda Rykova
  • Ass. director — Maria Kozyar
Upcoming Performances

October, 31, 19:00

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November, 11, 19:00

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Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel is, of course, a perennial favorite with directors. There have been countless film adaptations of Dangerous Liaisons, and the title has virtually never disappeared from theatre bills. Yet perhaps the story of the treacherous Vicomte de Valmont and his accomplice, the Marquise de Merteuil, has never before received such a strikingly imaginative incarnation.

At the heart of the production, literally within arm’s reach of the audience, stands a long table laden with every conceivable delicacy. The crust of a plum tart glows golden; luxuriant bunches of grapes and wheels of cheese gleam beneath the stage lights; beside a smoked ham, the flesh of a fig looks irresistibly inviting… Pot-bellied pitchers sit majestically, glasses await their turn, and a heavy tapestry has been casually tossed aside. Amid this abundance, intrigues will be woven, hearts broken, and lives destroyed.
Inga Bugulova, Rossiyskaya Gazeta
On the menu is a tasting of the premiere of Dangerous Liaisons, based on Choderlos de Laclos’s erotic novel. Director Yegor Peregudov takes on the role of chef. The central directorial idea around which the production is built is to unite theatre and painting, creating an allegorical canvas onstage.

In the darkness of the auditorium, a twenty-metre table laden with sumptuous food stretches from one end to the other, as though copied from dozens of opulent still lifes. Behind it, the characters appear like figures in portraits, enveloped in soft backlight within doorways. Light undergarments, tousled hair, warm colors, an abundance of wine, fruit and vegetables — all of it might have come from the brush of Caravaggio.
Veronika Slovokhotova, Nezavisimaya Gazeta
It is precisely this production-as-still-life, with its impeccable pictorial beauty, that proves the most successful of Yegor Peregudov’s inventions. […] Yet in Dangerous Liaisons the still life is more than a dazzling illusion or a beautiful picture: it becomes a merciless illustration of the present day, a documentary-precise record of the moment — people would rather eat than feel.

[…] “Chef” Peregudov is not looking for excuses for Laclos’s characters, but for truth. And he finds it, quite literally, without ever leaving the table.
Yana Zhilyaeva, Forbes
The letters that make up the novel are broken into smaller fragments, creating the impression of a living dialogue. Sharing the same stage, the characters sometimes address one another and sometimes seem not to notice one another at all — yet they invariably see themselves in the mirror suspended above the table. Is this disregard for others a whim, narcissism, deliberate inattention? It is impossible to tell. Just as it is difficult to know what each of them truly feels — the entire cast virtuously sustains this ambiguity.

[…] Yegor Peregudov’s production offers neither moralizing nor prescriptions for proper conduct in relationships. It provides no conclusions and no answers. There is only a sad story, repeated century after century: the search for happiness at someone else’s expense.
Zoya Borozdinova, Petersburg Theatre Journal
In Dangerous Liaisons, a table stretches across the entire length of the stage. And it groans beneath an extraordinary array of exquisite delicacies, like a Dutch still life. […] The beauty is mesmerizing.

[…] Peregudov is, after all, a master of spectacular, appetizing productions. The other period details — a carpet, an ottoman, a mandolin, even an exquisite chamber pot — conjure up the atmosphere of the gallant eighteenth century. “A tasting with an interval” is how Yegor Peregudov defines the production’s genre.
Anastasia Pleshakova, Komsomolskaya Pravda

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