Tom McCamus (10/09 Dangerous Liasons)
Excerpt from Theater Mania 10/14/09: Tom McCamus (Picture at The Globe & Mail)
Plummer, et al. Set for 2010 Stratford Shakespeare Festival
By: Dan Bacalzo · Oct 14, 2009 · Canada
The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has announced additional casting for its 2010 season, under the artistic leadership of Des McAnuff.
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Ethan McSweeny will direct Dangerous Liaisons, featuring Tom McCamus as Le Vicomte de Valmont, Seana McKenna as La Marquise de Merteuil, Sara Topham as La Présidente de Tourvel, Martha Henry as Mme de Rosemonde, Bethany Jillard as Cécile Volanges, and Yanna McIntosh as Mme de Volanges. The creative team will include designer Santo Loquasto and lighting designer Robert Thomson.
© Theater Mania
Excerpt from London Free Press 1/11/10: Tom McCamus
Stratford festival sales open THEATRE: Patrons who buy tickets for 2010 productions before May 1 can avoid paying the HST
By KATHY RUMLESKI , THE LONDON FREE PRESS Last Updated: 11th January 2010, 12:08pm
Martha Henry, Tom McCamus, Seana McKenna and Sara Topham will perform in Dangerous Liaisons, opening Aug. 12.
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Previews begin April 10. To purchase tickets call 1-800-567-1600 or visit www.stratfordshakespearefestival.com.
© London Free Press
Excerpt from Grosse Pointe News 2/11/10: Tom McCamus
Festival: Innovative productions
Other prime members of the company in big roles this year are Seana McKenna and Tom McCamus, both with many years of illustrious work there.
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These actors will surely be titillated by their scandalous roles as the Marquise de Merteuil and her lover, the Vicomte de Valmont, in "Dangerous Liasons" adapted from a book banned in France in 1824 for portraying the sexual ruin of two young women.
© Grosse Pointe News
Excerpt from Now Toronto 6/3/10: Tom McCamus
NOW critic’s picks: Road trip theatre
by Jon Kaplan June 3, 2010 12:00 AM
Playing with love
Toying with the affections of others is the key amusement of the Marquise de Merteuil and her occasional lover, Valmont, the clever, bored aristocrats in Christopher Hampton's Dangerous Liaisons. The Stratford production, featuring Seana McKenna and Tom McCamus as the central duo and Bethany Jillard and Sara Topham as their chess pieces, should be hot, sexy and filled with sharp, if nasty, wit. August 3 to October 30 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford. 1-800-567-1600.
© Now Toronto
Excerpt from Toronto Life 8/1/10: Tom McCamus
Dangerous liaisons
Toronto Life | August 1, 2010
Stratford stars Seana McKenna and Tom McCamus cook up some truly evil jeux in this deadly sexy Christopher Hampton work as the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont--two power players of the Ancien Regime bent on dominating virtuous souls and each other.
© Toronto Life
Playbill 8/3/10: Tom McCamus
Seana McKenna, Tom McCamus Spar in Stratford's Dangerous Liaisons, Directed by Ethan McSweeny
By Kenneth Jones 03 Aug 2010
American director Ethan McSweeny makes his directorial debut at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada Aug. 3 when Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons gets its first performance. Dangerous Liaisons opens officially on Aug. 12 and runs in repertory until Oct. 30 at the Festival Theatre, in Stratford, ON. McSweeny is artistic director of New York State's Chautauqua Theater Company. He has directed more than 50 productions for leading companies around the U.S. On Broadway, he directed the 2000 production of Gore Vidal's The Best Man.
Dangerous Liaisons, inspired by the 1782 novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, features a cast led by Martha Henry as Mme de Rosemond, Tom McCamus as le Vicomte de Valmont, Seana McKenna as la Marquise de Merteuil, Michael Therriault as Le Chevalier Danceny and Sarah Topham as la Présidente de Tourvel, Bethany Jillard as Cécile Volanges and Yanna McIntosh as Mme de Volanges.
© Playbill
Excerpt from Beat Magazine 8/3/10: Tom McCamus
Dangerous Liaisons Reviewed by Ceris Thomas
The success of this play relies upon the charisma of its two central performers. They are, inherently evil and in order for us to enjoy the production they need to seduce us from the beginning of the evening. At the first preview performance characters were strong and interesting. Rhythm was very good and the entire production ran very smoothly. All the characters were interesting but I found I was disappointed in Tom McCamus. While he is a typical actor for the role, he did not, on this occasion do enough to live up to the charms and witticism of the character. Unlike his Hook in Peter Pan, I found his performance of Valmont to be rather one note. His vocal inflection was too much the same and all of his escapades seem to take on the same flippant nature.
© Beat Magazine
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 8/12/10: Tom McCamus
The danger creeps up on you: Dangerous Liaisons sags at first, but director’s festival debut charms in the end
J. Kelly Nestruck Published on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2010 11:15PM EDT
Highlights: McCamus’s sonorous Valmont is indeed persuasive with his passion - and his fight with himself to become somewhat less of a monster makes for good drama. He has real chemistry with Topham's sweet and sympathetic de Tourvel.
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The nitpicks: That slow start - which may be in part due to an initially too-stifled performance from McKenna. There was also the matter of the eloquent Valmont stumbling over a few lines. Audience instant reaction: Hearts all a-flutter.
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from The Star 8/13/10: Tom McCamus
Dangerous Liaisons: Stylish, intelligent and funny
Published On Fri Aug 13 2010 By Richard Ouzounia
Sex has never been a big commodity at Stratford, but that situation definitely changed on Thursday night when Dangerous Liaisons opened at the Festival Theatre. Ethan McSweeny’s production of this slice of late 18th century French sensual intrigue is not only impeccably stylish, acerbically intelligent and mordantly funny, but it packs a truly erotic kick that is very welcome indeed.
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Of course, none of this would work without superlative acting and that’s what it gets. Who else but Tom McCamus could make the egotistical hedonist Valmont have redeeming human qualities?
© Toronto Star
Excerpt from The Record 8/13/10: Tom McCamus
Stratford’s Dangerous Liaisons is deliciously engaging
August 13, 2010 By Robert Reid, Record staff
The Festival Stage production, directed by Ethan McSweeny in an impressive Stratford debut, assembles some of the festival’s stars in Seana McKenna, Tom McCamus and Martha Henry. To say the festival season goes out with a luxurious and seductive bang is an understatement. And it’s all deliciously depraved enjoyment for cast and audience alike.
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Witnessing McKenna and McCamus verbally joust on stage brings the script to life before our very eyes - language transformed into action, literature transformed into life in all its sordid glory. They generate wonderful stage chemistry; at first coy and clever, and later poisoned with resentment.
© The Record
Excerpt from Toronto Sun 8/13/10: Tom McCamus
'Dangerous Liaisons' seduces
By JOHN COULBOURN, QMI Agency Last Updated: August 13, 2010 12:46pm
Impressively directed by Ethan McSweeny and lavishly designed by Santo Loquasto, this is a compelling production, even if it is occasionally unbalanced by too much talk and not enough action. While there are impressive performances throughout from a blue-blooded supporting cast -- the venerable Martha Henry, the always impressive Yanna McIntosh and the evergreen Michael Therriault joining Jillard and Topham in an all but flawless ensemble -- it belongs, in the end, to McCamus and McKenna. And well it should, for rarely have these two worked better, either separately or as a team.
As the conniving Marquise, McKenna uses a blazing sense of femininity and a razor-sharp intellect to conceal a heart so hard and cold that it could probably crush diamonds, while McCamus brings enough charm and swagger -- the latter impeded only slightly by the heels his costuming demands -- that he seduces his audience with the same ease with which he undoes the virtue of the lovely young Cecile.
© Toronto Sun
Excerpt from Canoe 8/13/10: Tom McCamus
'Liaisons' is dangerously good
By JOHN COULBOURN, QMI Agency August 13, 2010
Once intimates, the fading and widowed le Marquise de Merteuil (Seana McKenna) and the rakish La Vicomte de Valmont (Tom McCamus) have settled into a strange form of friendship that allows them to treasure the memory of the physical intimacies they once shared, even while they separately pursue new conquests.
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While there are impressive performances throughout from a blue-blooded supporting cast -- the venerable Martha Henry, the always impressive Yanna McIntosh and the evergreen Michael Therriault joining Jillard and Topham in an all but flawless ensemble -- it belongs, in the end, to McCamus and McKenna. And well it should, for rarely have these two worked better, either separately or as a team. As the conniving Marquise, McKenna uses a blazing sense of femininity and a razor-sharp intellect to conceal a heart so hard and cold that it could probably crush diamonds, while McCamus brings enough charm and swagger -- the latter impeded only slightly by the heels his costuming demands -- that he seduces his audience with the same ease with which he undoes the virtue of the lovely young Cecile.
© Canoe
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 8/15/10: Tom McCamus
Dangerously irresistible
J. Kelly Nestruck Published on Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010 3:45PM EDT
Stratford’s satisfying 2010 season comes to a carnal close with Dangerous Liaisons.
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As the tightly wound Tourvel, Topham loosens her corseted conscience only inch by inch - and the slow seduction only makes it all the hotter. It’s indeed impressive that she stays upright as long as she does, because she and McCamus have some truly sensational chemistry. For his part, McCamus, low-voiced and louche, is delightfully depraved. Which makes the sudden appearance of his conscience that much more surprising, and his battle between that moral centre and his pride very powerful to watch.
© Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Classical 963 FM 8/17/10: Tom McCamus
Stratford Shakespeare Festival - Christopher Hampton’s Dangerous Liaisons
by Stefan Di Iorio | Aug 17, 2010
The excellent Tom McCamus was born to play Valmont, giving the role just the right amount of pride, vanity, and irony, while Seana McKenna is brilliant as the devious and conniving Merteuil. Their narcissistic relationship defines the play.
© Classical 963 FM
Excerpt from Canada.com 8/18/10: Tom McCamus
Dangerous Liaisons: Sexual evil stalks the Stratford Festival stage in this excellent production.
By Jamie Portman, Postmedia News August 18, 2010
English playwright Christopher Hampton's brilliant 1985 play, Dangerous Liaisons, gets an equally brilliant revival here, one that is dominated by the performances of Tom McCamus and Seana McKenna as two of the vilest human beings in dramatic literature. It's the kind of heartless villainy that exercises the hypnotic fascination of a cobra, as these two 18th-century aristocrats seek their pleasure in the demeaning and destruction of others. McCamus is the infamous Vicomte de Valmont: a hedonist to the very last pore of his being, oozing confident sensuality even at his most languid; a predator driven by appetite, animal instinct and a sense of entitlement that sustains him through every sexual conquest.
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Valmont's seduction of the married and virtuous de Tourvel (a stellar performance from Sara Topham) may seethe with sensuality, but it also marks a fatal turning point in Valmont's history, when new and unexpected emotions take over. By the end of the play, he seems powerless against his own destiny. ``It's beyond my control,'' McCamus keeps repeating in perhaps the evening's most electrifying moments.
© Canada.com
Excerpt from The American Scene 8/20/10: Tom McCamus
They Say The Only Way To Get Rid Of Temptation Is To Give In To It, But I Had To Go Back For Seconds
In particular, Tom McCamus’ vulpine Valmont brought home in a way that reading the book never did just what it was that was so appealing about this cad. Reading Laclos’s novel, I must admit, I found Valmont to be something of a braggart - I honestly didn’t believe his exploits, precisely because it didn’t seem to me like a man who was so intent on showing off how many conquests he’d made could possibly have actually made them. He came off as shallow and, honestly, not terribly interesting. But anyone - particularly any woman - who isn’t thrilled by McCamus’s leering slouch - well, she could probably use a visit from him.
© The American Scene
Excerpt from Elle Canada 9/27/10: Tom McCamus
French kissed and dissed
September 27, 2010, 2:29 am by Intern
A sultry and seductive Tom McCamus stars as Vicomte de Valmont, who strikes a deal with his former chérie, Seana McKenna’s Marquise de Merteuil, to get back at her current beau, Danceny, by sleeping with his fiancé, Cécile.
© Elle Canada
Excerpt from Suite 10/21/10: Tom McCamus
Seana McKenna and Sara Topham on Dangerous Liaisons
by Coral Andrews
The play stars Seana McKenna as The Marquise, Sara Topham as Madame de Tourvel and Tom McCamus as Valmont. When asked to chat about their roles in the sexiest show in Stratford history, opposite leading man Tom McCamus, leading ladies McKenna and Topham, like the characters they play, had different reactions to these naughty questions!
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Do you have a favourite Merteuil line from the play?
Seana McKenna (laughing): " I have a few. Usually, when I get to better one of Tom’s (McCamus) lines and working with him is pleasurable. There are moments on stage where we both think yeah, this is what this is about. Because it is about the chemistry between these two as well, that you have to know that they are having a good time, at least from the beginning, and then it takes a very wrong turn.”
© Suite
Excerpt from The Charlebois Post 1/8/12: Tom McCamus
The Sunday Read: Barbara Ford Profiles Quincy Armorer, Black Theatre Workshop AD
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Though the program was originally designed to be a one-time offer, in February 2009, Henry allowed first year students to return the following season to further upgrade their training, thereby enriching the experience for both the newcomers and the returning trainees. Armorer seized the day and returned for a second year, performing in Dangerous Liaisons and Peter Pan for the 2010 Stratford season. It was a bi-polar season for him, as he played the over-the-top pirate Mullins in Peter Pan, and then the ever-present yet silent footman for the manipulative Marquise de Merteuil in Liaisons. Armorer shared one of his most cherished memories that season describing how he had to be on stage for a full ten minutes, standing at attention without a word or gesture to himself. “I got to watch two masters [Seana McKenna and Tom McCamus] work. They were amazing. Some may have thought it boring to just stand there for so long but for me, it was like a master class: I learned something every night.”
© The Charlebois Post
Excerpt from Toronto Life 2/10/12: Tom McCamus
Today in Toronto: Divisadero, Hanson, War Horse and more
Divisadero: A Performance Michael Ondaatje’s 2007 novel got the theatrical treatment last year, with Daniel Brooks directing Maggie Huculak, Tom McCamus and Liane Balaban in a stage adaptation, which gets a remount this month. Acting neophyte Justin Rutledge-a very fine singer-songwriter and Ondaatje’s muse for the project-turns in a solid performance as itinerant gambler Coop, but it’s Amy Rutherford as a magnetic, desperate junkie who steals the show. Previews from Feb. 8.
© Toronto Life