After its hit with a sour bubblegum musical based on Heathers, the Other Palace presents an adaptation of another ultra-quotable movie about high-school damage. This jukebox show, first staged in the US almost a decade ago, was co-created by Roger Kumble, closely adapted from his 1999 film “suggested by” Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
Cruel Intentions’ tale of Upper East Side teenage treachery, privilege and popped cherries came with a soundtrack bookended by Placebo’s Every You Every Me and the Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony. Along with Counting Crows’ Colorblind, those songs are reused here for the same scenes as the film. Added to the mix are hits by No Doubt, TLC and Ace of Base (The Sign greets an orgasm), plus a hummable snippet from the Dawson’s Creek theme.
Performed by the company, Placebo’s opener is somewhat drained of doom and many of the songs are used for either comedic or romantic purposes. Often, the lyrics shrewdly match character or story. When Kathryn (Laclos’s Marquise de Merteuil) sets up a wager with stepbrother Sebastian (the Vicomte de Valmont), they plunge into Christina Aguilera’s Genie in a Bottle whose lustful unease mirrors their incestuous desire. In the film, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe had a silky, languorous connection but Jonathan O’Boyle’s production tends to race through scenes and throw away lines, including Kathryn’s promise that Sebastian can, ahem, “put it anywhere” if they go to bed.
First, Sebastian has to seduce the celibate Annette and he also pursues the younger Cecile. In one of the film’s most vexed scenes, he spikes Cecile’s drink and intimidates her before forcing oral sex on her. In the musical, while she is still unknowingly drinking alcohol and is blackmailed, the script includes a consensual reply to his proposition. It is among a handful of occasions where the show half-redresses behaviour in the film. Sebastian calls out the racism of Cecile’s mother (also satirised through her performance of No Scrubs) yet the film’s ableist and homophobic slurs pass unchecked.
Created by Kumble, Jordan Ross and Lindsey Rosin, it is performed on a hyper-active revolve stage with pop choreography by Gary Lloyd. Speeding through two dozen songs, occasionally combined – as in an awkward mashup of REM’s Losing My Religion and Meredith Brooks’ Bitch – you get the sense of hopping between music video channels, not least when schoolgirls who seem to have arrived from a Britney Spears video accompany a rendition of Just a Girl. But Garbage’s Only Happy When It Rains is a smart companion to Placebo and Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn deftly mirrors the shame felt by Sebastian and Annette.
Polly Sullivan’s design has a dartboard-style floor and combines the story’s origins by using candelabras and school crests but it lacks seductive lustre and Sebastian’s attire looks cut price. Kathryn’s costumes are better and Rhianne-Louise McCaulsky is sensational in the role, exuding hauteur with the slightest hair toss. McCaulsky is matched well by Daniel Bravo, whose wavy curls recall Phillippe’s, and there are appealing professional debuts from Abbie Budden (Annette) and Rose Galbraith (Cecile), while Josh Barnett and Barney Wilkinson strengthen the film’s gay relationship. Nickcolia King-N’Da and Jess Buckby complete the cast whose confidence elevates a peppy musical that can’t quite calibrate the movie’s toxicity.
At the Other Palace, London, until 14 April
