By Coral Gables Gazette staff

Forty years after appearing in the original Royal Shakespeare Company production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Lesley Manville has returned to Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation — this time as the Marquise de Merteuil.

Local audiences can see that return this weekend when National Theatre Live brings the filmed stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses to Coral Gables Art Cinema for three days of screenings beginning Friday, June 26.

The Friday screening begins at 1:30 p.m. and features open captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. Additional screenings are scheduled for noon Saturday and Sunday.

A return with history

Manville’s connection to Les Liaisons Dangereuses reaches back to the play’s modern stage origins.

Hampton’s adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 18th-century novel was first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1985. The production became one of the defining theatrical events of its decade and helped establish the play as a modern classic of theatrical adaptation. The story later reached a wider film audience through the 1988 movie starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich.

In the original RSC staging, Manville was part of the company. In the 2026 National Theatre production, she returns to the world of the play from the other end of its power structure: no longer as one of the young people manipulated by the aristocratic players, but as Merteuil, one of the manipulators.

That biographical turn gives the casting unusual force. It is not simply a major actor taking on a great part. It is an actor returning, four decades later, to a text that has followed her across a career.

Seduction as strategy

Les Liaisons Dangereuses takes place in the salons of pre-revolutionary French aristocracy, where reputation is currency and seduction functions as a form of warfare.

The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont are allies in manipulation, using desire, vanity and vulnerability as instruments of control. But when their alliance collapses into rivalry, the damage extends far beyond the two people clever enough to imagine themselves immune from consequence.

Hampton’s adaptation has endured because it treats cruelty not as melodrama, but as intelligence turned toward corruption. The drama lies in watching brilliant people use perception, language and charm to destroy others — and then each other.

The National Theatre production

The filmed production comes from the National Theatre, where Marianne Elliott directed the 2026 staging. Elliott is best known to theater audiences for major productions including Angels in America, which transferred from the National Theatre to Broadway.

Manville plays the Marquise de Merteuil opposite Aidan Turner as the Vicomte de Valmont. Monica Barbaro plays Madame de Tourvel, with Gabrielle Drake as Madame de Rosemond, Darragh Hand as Chevalier Danceny, Cat Simmons as Madame de Volanges and Hannah van der Westhuysen as Cécile Volanges.

The production ran at the National Theatre’s Lyttelton Theatre from March through early June before arriving in cinemas through National Theatre Live.

The play’s themes remain unsettling: sexual power, class privilege, reputation, coercion and the social systems that allow predatory behavior to pass as sophistication. The National Theatre’s content advisory notes depictions of sexual assault and grooming, sexual references, references to baby loss, strong language, violence and flashing lights.

A screen built for stage

The Coral Gables Art Cinema has long included National Theatre Live in its programming, giving local audiences access to major British stage productions without leaving Aragon Avenue.

That matters for a production like Les Liaisons Dangereuses. On stage, the play depends on proximity: glances, pauses, calculations and changes in emotional temperature. National Theatre Live’s filmed-stage format uses multiple cameras and professional sound to translate those details for cinema audiences, preserving the theatrical event while giving viewers access to facial expression and physical nuance that can be difficult to catch from a theater seat.

The Coral Gables Art Cinema is well suited to that purpose. The 141-seat nonprofit cinema offers 4K digital projection, professional sound and a 28-by-12-foot screen — a small enough room for concentration, but with the technical capacity to carry a filmed stage production at scale.

For Coral Gables audiences, the result is a hybrid experience: not a movie adaptation, and not a live stage performance, but a carefully filmed encounter with one of London theater’s major recent revivals.

If you go

National Theatre Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Friday, June 26, Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, June 28 at 1:30 pm.
Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables
Director: Marianne Elliott
Cast: Lesley Manville, Aidan Turner, Monica Barbaro, Gabrielle Drake, Darragh Hand, Cat Simmons and Hannah van der Westhuysen
Runtime: 180 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission
Tickets: $16 for cinema members; up to $20 for nonmembers
Accessibility: Friday screening features open captions
Information: gablescinema.com or (786) 472-2249