"Why do the British have a problem with Marivaux," asks Gilbert Adair in the programme. Actually, I'm not sure they do. Marivaux's scepticism, irony and fascination with money and sex make him seem peculiarly modern, as Jonathan Kent's production and Martin Crimp's translation of this 1724 comedy eloquently prove.
For a writer often thought of as coldly mathematical, there is something strangely unresolved about this particular Marivaux play. Everything hinges on a young woman's disguise as a chevalier, ostensibly to witness first-hand the mercenariness of a potential husband, Lelio.
Having befriended the monstrous Lelio, she agrees to rescue him from the marital clutches of a middle-aged countess by wooing the lady herself. Her apparent aim is to protect the countess's money and expose Lelio's deviousness. But is that her actual motive?
Marivaux's real preoccupation is erotic power and the fluidity of gender. Unlike the Rodgers and Hammerstein heroine who enjoyed being a girl, Marivaux's protagonist clearly relishes being a man. She stresses her attractiveness, is ready to fight a duel with Lelio and, in two extraordinary seduction scenes, reduces the countess to grovelling humiliation. She may, in Crimp's witty translation, sardonically announce, "I see blood on a regular basis," but she is driven by an androgynous narcissism that links her with the cross-dressing Dietrich and Hepburn heroines of 20th-century cinema.
Kent's production is slow to get started, but it wrings every last sexual nuance out of the key encounters. The presence of the huskily melancholic Charlotte Rampling as the countess adds an extra layer to the play by making her seem a figure like Strauss's Marschallin, poignantly transfixed by youth. Nancy Carroll also brings out excel lently the chevalier's emotional cruelty.
And there is good work from Anthony Calf as the drily avaricious Lelio, and Adrian Scarborough as a slyly opportunistic servant. At first, given the mirrored elegance of Paul Brown's chateau setting, I yearned for period costume. But Kent is right to opt for modern dress, since Marivaux's play is as barbed and honest about sex as anything by Patrick Marber.
· In rep until September 15. Box office: 020-7452 3000.
