4/10/01

CONTACT: Alison Duxbury, lecturer, Drama Department: (650) 723-2646, duxie@stanford.edu

John Sanford, writer, News Service: (650) 736-2151, jsanford@stanford

Drama Department to stage Quartet, based on Dangerous Liaisons

Seduction. Deception. The prospect of death.

The Drama Department will stage Heiner Müller's Quartet at 8 p.m. April 11-14 and at 3 p.m. April 15 in the Nitery Theater, located in the Old Union. Admission is $5, and tickets will be available at the door only.

Directed by Professor Jean-Marie Apostolidès, the play is based on Laclos's novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, which comprises a fictional correspondence between a debauched pair of French aristocrats who play a calculated game of seduction for entertainment and revenge. Müller's reworking of the book includes a healthy dollop of existentialism.

Müller is considered one of the most important German playwrights of the second half of the 20th century. Influenced by Artaud, Genet and the European avant-garde, his plays have been widely performed in Europe and the United States. Drama Professor Carl Weber has translated his work into English.

Apostolidès, who teaches drama and French, recently directed The Lover, by Harold Pinter, and The Bald Soprano, by Eugène Ionesco, at Stanford.

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By John Sanford