The route that has brought Richard Twyman to Tokyo to direct an all-Japanese cast in a play based on an 18th-century French novel has taken many twists and turns.

Now, though, it has finally led this rising star of the British drama scene here with his own new version of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," a work in which two estranged lovers weave heartless sex schemes to wreck each other's future.

"I grew up in the Highlands of Scotland and had no contact with theater," Twyman explains, going back to the beginning. "At school I was cripplingly shy, but I was really lucky because it had a good drama department, and from there I went on to study drama and theater arts at Birmingham University."