The actor Liev Schreiber is one of the most versatile and essential performers of our time. His stirring, boldly traditionalist Henry V in the 2003 Shakespeare in the Park production was worthy of Laurence Olivier, and in recent years he has ranged from other Shakespeare productions to the twentieth-century theatrical canon (Glengarry Glen Ross, A View from the Bridge), the small screen (Ray Donovan), and the large one (The Painted Veil). His brief appearance as Martin Baron, the former Boston Globe editor, in last year’s Oscar-winning film Spotlight was a marvel of internal tension: quiet, withdrawn, seemingly distant, and yet so utterly poised that in just a few minutes of screen time he provided a fulcrum for the other major characters, all of them played by highly skilled thespians who, unlike Schreiber, sometimes could not resist reminding us that they were acting. Schreiber’s ability to conceal the mechanics of what he does is consistently laudable. One looks forward with breathless anticipation to his next role: the villain in the upcoming film version of My Little Pony. Did I mention Schreiber’s work ethic shames us all?

As the Vicomte de Valmont in the all-but-flawless production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses(at the Booth Theatre through Jan. 8), Schreiber startled me by transforming his voice from its usual husky register to a higher, reedier, more quizzical plateau that polishes the scalpel blade of Valmont’s scrupulous ruthlessness. The play, a 1985 adaptation by the