Maybe five months ago Netflix suggested I might enjoy An Ideal Husband. Why not, it was an Oscar Wilde play, so I watched it and got what I expected. A comedy of manners, people behind doors or screens eavesdrop on conversations and misinterpret what they hear secrets, bets, blackmail, and everything turns out all right in the end.
More recently, in the past month I was told we were looking to do Dangerous Liaisons next year. An overwhelming prospect, if I am the only draper. I knew little about the play except that it is an overwhelming costume piece, "all about the clothes" in a time moments before the French Revolution where people got their heads chopped off for wearing such ostentatious, frivolous clothes. But anyway I thought I needed to learn more about the play in case anyone asked for my opinion I could tell them what I thought about how much work would actually go into costuming this show. Let's not forget that in this show people get dressed on stage which means that you have to make beautiful costumes that look good on the inside too, and beautiful undergarments...but I digress on the costume needs of the show.
Anyway I couldn't find a play script, or the novel so I ordered the movie from Netflix. It was so good! I loved it, chilling and creepy, twists and secrets, revenge, games, bets, people plotting and twisting and destroying their own lives, a tragedy, it doesn't turn out all right in the end. But I really liked it, it made me more interested in finding the book, but I was unsure why I liked it so much.
I had totally forgot about ever seeing An Ideal Husband when it came on TV last week. After some "this is so familiar, I think I have seen this...Yes I have" I came to an odd realization the comedy of manners and the Dangerous Liaisons are like opposite sides of the same coin. In theater you talk about how plays end it marriage or death. If there is a marriage it is a comedy, and death is a tragedy. Now that is a really simple explanation and works well for Shakespeare. I understand that we make things more complicated today. But if you have marriage or death as your two outcomes then isn't it possible to have the same plot points except one is a comedy and one is a tragedy? I think so, I think this is part of the reason why I liked Dangerous Liaisons.
