Reza, Yasmina

▪ 2002

      During the 2000–01 theatre season, French playwright and actress Yasmina Reza seemed to be everywhere. Her hit plays were being staged throughout the world, and she herself took a role in a Paris production. Though best known for Art, she was enjoying renewed attention for her latest stage work, Trois versions de la vie. It had its premiere in Vienna in October 2000 and opened the following month in Paris, with the author in the cast, and in December in London under the title Life × 3. The work showed a ticklish situation—a couple arriving a day early for a dinner party—working itself out in three ways. Reza, born on May 1, 1959, in Paris, was the daughter of Jewish parents who had immigrated to France. Her father was an Iranian born in Moscow, and her mother was from Budapest. The father was an engineer and businessman who was also a pianist, and her mother was a violinist. The daughter studied at the University of Paris X, Nanterre, and at the drama school of Jacques Lecoq before working as an actress. Her first plays, both winners of a Molière Award, were Conversations After a Burial (1987), involving death and sex, and Winter Crossing (1990). It was Art, however, which premiered in 1994, that brought her wide notice. In the play three friends quarrel over a work of modern art and thereby show just how fragile friendship can be. The play was in production on major stages worldwide virtually continuously after its opening. It won Molière Awards for best author, play, and production, Olivier and Evening Standard awards in London, and a Tony Award in New York as best play. Another hit, The Unexpected Man (1995), was a two-hander set on a train. Following long monologues by a male author and his female seatmate and fan, the play ends with a brief dialogue between the two that centres on people's need for one another. Included in Reza's other writings was Hammerklavier, novelized vignettes of memories of her father, published in 1997. She did a French translation of an adaptation of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis for the filmmaker Roman Polanski and wrote two screenplays, including Le Pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz for a film directed by her companion, Didier Martigny. Returning to her first profession, she took part in the filming of Loin (also known as Terminus des anges), directed by André Téchiné, in 2000. Critics said that not since Jean Anouilh in the 1950s had a French playwright been so exportable. Reza's brief dramas with small casts, written in a spare, witty language, offered satire in the tradition of Molière. At the same time, the playwright spoke to contemporary anxieties, and critics compared her to Harold Pinter and Edward Albee.

Robert Rauch

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▪ French playwright and actress

born May 1, 1959, Paris, France

      French dramatist, novelist, and actress best known for her brief, satiric plays that speak to contemporary middle-class anxieties.

      Reza was the daughter of Jewish parents who had immigrated to France. Her Iranian father was an engineer, businessman, and a pianist, and her mother was a violinist originally from Budapest. Reza studied at the University of Paris X, Nanterre, and at the drama school of Jacques Lecoq before working as an actress. The first two plays she wrote, both winners of a Molière Award, were Conversations après un enterrement (1986; Conversations After a Burial), involving death and sex, and La Traversée de l'hiver (1989; “Winter Crossing”), about the unlikely friendship that develops between six people spending their vacation at a Swiss mountain resort.

      It was Art however, which premiered in 1994, that brought Reza wide notice. In the play three friends quarrel over a work of modern art—which is, in effect, a blank canvas—thereby showing just how fragile friendship can be. The play was in production on major stages worldwide virtually continuously after its opening. It won Molière Awards for best author, play, and production; Olivier and Evening Standard awards in London; and a Tony Award in New York for best play. Another hit, L'Homme du hasard (1995; The Unexpected Man), was a two-character play set on a train traveling from Paris to Frankfurt. Following long monologues by a self-absorbed male author and his female seatmate and fan, the play ends with a brief dialogue between the two that centres on people's need for one another. In 2000 Reza's next play, Trois versions de la vie, showed an awkward situation—a couple arriving a day early for a dinner party—working itself out in three different outcomes. After premiering in Vienna in October, it opened the following month in Paris, with the author in the cast, and in December in London under the title Life × 3. Une Pièce espagnole: théâtre (2004; The Spanish Play), about a cast of actors rehearsing for and appearing in a play written by a Spanish playwright, gives insight into the theatrical world.

      Reza's other writings include the novel Hammerklavier (1997), which was written as vignettes of memories of her father. She did a French translation of an adaptation of Franz Kafka (Kafka, Franz)'s Metamorphosis for the filmmaker Roman Polanski (Polanski, Roman) and wrote two screenplays, including Le Pique-nique de Lulu Kreutz (“Lula Kreutz's Picnic”) for a film directed by her companion, Didier Martigny. Her later novels include Une Désolation (1999; Desolation), a monologue delivered by an elderly man who cannot understand how others can be foolish enough to find happiness in life, and Adam Haberberg (2002), which centres on an unsuccessful, unhappy, middle-aged writer whose happenstance encounter with an old friend from high school reminds him of how much his life and his family mean to him.

      In 2007 Reza showed her broad range of talent with the publication of L'Aube le soir ou la nuit (“Dawn Evening or Night”), a detailed biography of Nicolas Sarkozy (Sarkozy, Nicolas) as he ran for president of France. Reza was given almost unlimited access to a man she saw as talented and power-driven during the time she followed him on the campaign trail, chronicling both his public and his private life.

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