Theater

Vindication and malicious intents have never been more rapturous than in director Robert Wilson's  Quartett. Written by German playwright Heiner Müller (as a highly condensed adaptation of the 18th-century French novel  Les Liaisons dangereuses), this work is an extraordinary expression of innocence lost.

The incomparable French actress Isabelle Huppert (I ♥ Huckabees,  8 Women,  The Piano Teacher) is the toxic Marquise de Merteuil, seething with fury opposite her perverse partner in crime Valmont, played with marvelous physicality by Ariel Garcia Valdès. As Wilson unfurls his stylized choreography and tableaux motifs with stark sounds and saturated colors, he transforms every calculated movement into gorgeous and provocative studies of character.