THEATER REVIEWS : Right Moves in ‘Dangerous’ Game : Actors exude appropriate coldness for Christopher Hampton’s work, a sort of observation tower on the worst in human nature.

Contrary to what one would expect, Christopher Hampton’s “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” is getting more dangerous with age.

*

We have had the tale, and Hampton’s precise and extremely faithful adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’ pre-French Revolution epistolary novel, told back to us again and again--the cool Frank Langella “Liaisons” at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in 1988, the indecisive GroveShakespeare staging in 1991, and two film versions in between (the fine “Dangerous Liaisons,” after Hampton’s play, and the stillborn “Valmont”).

Nevertheless, it continues to serve as a kind of observation tower on the worst in human nature. And Robert Cohen’s UC Irvine production allows Hampton’s play a truly Olympian perspective.

The opening stage picture immediately lends the play an operatic scale even the Ahmanson staging didn’t approach.

There is Randall F. Ewing’s set on the large Irvine Barclay Theatre stage, with a Franco-Greco facade chipped away, a gigantic black-and-white wall painting a la Fragonard of nude lovers in bed, and a vast empty salon space occupied by a few solitary bewigged humans (in Kimberley M. Barnhardt’s deliberately oversized costumes). Yet it is more than mere prettiness, or the urge of a well-endowed university theater department to show off.

This is the image of a world of supremely elegant cruelty in which innocents are pawns in a game of sexual conquests. The rules are about to be tested, and the elegance is beginning to erode.

As far as the seducer-among-seducers is concerned, though, it is just another year in the 1780s. The Vicomte de Valmont (Eric Steinberg) is recounting his current bedroom games to his once--and, he hopes, future--lover, the Marquise de Merteuil (Christine McGraw).

Rather than mere romps, these are for Valmont exploits on which to build an already awesome reputation; for Merteuil, they are nothing compared to her arrangements, which are to exact maximum revenge on those who dare spurn her.

Hampton actually lays down the entire course of his play in this first scene. What makes “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” such a dramaturgical wonder is how he never plays a plot card before he must, tightening the noose so gradually that the victim never sees what’s coming.

Nothing, in fact, matches Merteuil’s and Valmont’s ruthlessness as much as Hampton’s ruthlessly precise skill in bringing these idle rich to their eventual end, without ever crudely manipulating for a message.

Cohen’s finale is, alas, a little too crude, taking Hampton’s scripted image of the impending revolution to comically horror-movie extremes. The other movie inference--retitling the play for this production “Dangerous Liaisons”--is just as unnecessary.

But there are few such miscues elsewhere.

While one might wish for a more magisterial projection of control from McGraw’s Merteuil, she is eventually thoroughly assured of her career direction. Her key pronouncement--”I was born to dominate your sex and avenge my own”--is a dagger that Steinberg’s Valmont cannot fend.

Steinberg plays the cock-of-the-walk with an infectious pleasure; he is the first Valmont I have seen who made you wish him well in his battle with Merteuil (his verbal sexual innuendoes especially elicit waves of giggles, as if we wouldn’t mind trading places with him for a night). This is a naughty reading that makes the audience dangerously complicit.

His various victims--Pia Williams’ innocent-to-carnal Cecile and Rebecca Clark’s Tourvel, a good woman brought down--are given real texture here, and deliver powerful counterpoint to Valmont’s attractiveness. Clark’s slow giving way to Steinberg’s urges is almost painful to watch, her decency eaten away from within.

*

Phil Tabor plays the youthful Danceny as all arms and legs, but his height tends to make him physically dominate Steinberg, when it should be the other way around. Lynn Watson’s superbly icy Mme. de Rosemond, on the other hand, dominates with a mere remark.

She feels nothing , and it is this cold amorality that is the strongest sense coming off the Barclay stage. Americans don’t come to such European remoteness naturally. This is really acting.

“Dangerous Liaisons,” Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m. Ends Saturday. $11-$14. (714) 856-6616, 856-5000 or 854-4646. Running time: 3 hours. Christine McGraw La Marquise de Merteuil

Pia Williams Cecile Volanges

Laura Mulrenan Mme.de Volanges

Stephen Simon Major-Domo

Eric Steinberg Le Vicomte de Valmont

Allen Moon Footman

Lucy Killick Maid

Buck Stevens Azolan

Lynn Watson Mme. de Rosemond

Rebecca Clark La Presidente de Tourvel

Lisa Colbert Emilie

Phil Tabor Le Chevalier Danceny

A Drama at UCI production. Play by Christopher Hampton, from the novel by Choderlos de Laclos. Directed by Robert Cohen. Scenic design: Randall F. Ewing. Lights: Cameron Harvey. Costumes: Kimberley M. Barnhardt. Fight Choreographer: Christopher Villa. Production stage manager: Steven McDonald.