I don't have any to offer. I am interested in problems and conflicts. The aristocrats created by the opportunist aristocrat Choderlos de Laclos in his novel, are creatures of the Age of Reason. This is not a play of animal passion. In Quartet Valmont and Merteuil are in an ambiguous playground-theatre hell, constructed by themselves, and are coursing through time.
Time here is relentless.
There are many resonances of Genet, in form, style and content. The two are players against the abyss. In approaching the play for the Washington production, director Zeljko Djukic has found that there is a parallel to Beckett, but notes that Beckett's characters are not driven in their games by passionate sexuality, or passionate fear of oblivion. Valmont and Merteuil are in no way resigned or detached from their existence. Though their power games take place on the stage of life afloat in black emptiness, they play with passion and eros and fire.