Yasmina Reza
Yasmina Reza is a prominent French playwright, actress, and novelist, renowned for her insightful and often humorous explorations of human relationships and societal issues. Born into a culturally rich family with a Hungarian violinist mother and a Persian Jewish businessman father, Reza's diverse background informs her dynamic works. She began her career in the theater as an actor but soon transitioned to writing, achieving significant acclaim with her first play, "Conversations après un enterrement," which earned the 1987 Molière Award.
Her most famous work, "Art," examines the complexities of male friendship through a comedic lens and has sparked considerable debate in the art community due to its provocative themes surrounding modern art. Reza's plays often feature a limited number of characters and tight narratives, making them both financially viable and artistically compelling. Critics have noted her ability to blend philosophical discourse with accessible humor, earning her comparisons to esteemed playwrights like Harold Pinter and Arthur Schnitzler. Reza's works continue to resonate with audiences in both Europe and the United States, solidifying her status as a vital figure in contemporary theater.
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Subject Terms
Yasmina Reza
Playwright
- Born: May 1, 1959
- Birthplace: Paris, France
French playwright and actor
Biography
Yasmina Reza began her drama career as an actor on the French stage, where she explored the works of Marivaux and Molière. Her mother was a Hungarian violinist, and her father was a Moscow-born Persian Jewish businessman. Her cultured childhood and exotic family history provided Reza with a foundation from which to draw autobiographical sketches of family and artistic conflict.
Reza studied sociology at the University of Paris X Nanterre (now Paris West University Nanterre La Défense) and acting at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq (the Jacques Lecoq International Theater School). Although she briefly worked as a stage actor, by the late 1980s, she had found that she was too impatient to succeed in the profession. Thus she wrote her first play, Conversations après un enterrement (Conversations after a Burial), in 1987. Its performance in France won her the 1987 Molière Award for best playwright, after which it was translated into several languages and performed across Europe.
Her subsequent work garnered similar acclaim. La Traversée de l’hiver (1989; The Winter Crossing), a play about three men and three women savoring the final moments of a summer retreat in the mountains, won the 1990 Molière Award for best fringe production. “Art” (1994), which premiered in Berlin before opening in Paris, won the 1995 Molière Awards for best playwright and best show in an independent theater. In 1995 L’homme du hasard (The Unexpected Man), a mature work about the spoken thoughts of a man and a woman seated opposite each other on a train, was produced in London and France. The Royal Shakespeare Company at the Barbican in London revived it in 1998 before transferring it to the West End for a highly successful run.
It was Reza’s hit play “Art” that generated the most enthusiasm and controversy in the international arts and entertainment communities. An intelligent and comical exploration of the nature of male friendship and modern art, it pits three friends against one another when one of them, a dermatologist, buys an all-white modern painting for two hundred thousand francs, causing one friend to become overtly critical and the other to straddle the fence. The concept was inspired by a real-life encounter when a close friend of Reza’s bought a blank white canvas for an exorbitant price and proudly displayed it for her; her initial reaction was to laugh. (The two remained friends, and the owner of the painting loved the play.)
Critics in the art community accused Reza of misrepresenting contemporary art, attributing the disparaging arguments in “Art” to her own opinions. One critic, writing for the Guardian, even compared her to Nazis mocking “degenerate” modern art. (The play's English translator, Christopher Hampton, wrote a rebuttal article chiding the critic for conflating character with author and for seemingly missing the message of the final speech.) By contrast, the acting community happily embraced the play’s dominant theme of male friendship. Scottish actor Sean Connery bought the Broadway rights to the play, and highly esteemed American stage actors Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro sought roles in the American stage productions.
In both “Art” and The Unexpected Man, Reza’s previous stage experience directed her writing toward fewer characters and shorter scripts, thus making these productions financially lower risk and highly profitable. Her penchant for the comedic repartee of “Art” made the play accessible to middle-class patrons who enjoy Neil Simon and Woody Allen, while the underlying serious social and cultural themes that filter through the wit satisfied the sophisticated theatergoers that usually seek the existential conflicts of a French or Russian play. (Even so, the British and American response to “Art”, attributable in no small part to Hampton’s witty translation, has long frustrated Reza, who views the play more as a tragedy than as a comedy.) This combination of philosophical argument, wry bourgeois sensibility, and theater savvy has inspired critics to place Reza among dramatists such as Nathalie Sarraute, Harold Pinter, and Arthur Schnitzler.
Critics are divided in their assessment of the long-term value of a tragicomedy such as “Art”, as the tenuous premise of an expensive abstract painting is reminiscent for some of the thin consistency of a television situation comedy. Reza herself has acknowledged the attitude of the European intellectual sector that any artist who refuses to subscribe to an ideology as the basis for his or her work is often dismissed as reactionary. The comedic flow of “Art” lends itself particularly to the sensibility of an American audience that laughs easily while feeling sympathetic to the sad undertones of a friendship under the threat of destruction. The consistent success of Reza’s skill with words and wit maintains her place firmly among the most popular playwrights of the United States and Europe.
Bibliography
Blume, Mary. “Yasmina Reza and the Anatomy of a Play.” New York Times. New York Times, 28 Mar. 1998. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.
Danto, Arthur C. “Art, from France to the US.” Nation 29 June 1998: 28–31. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.
Giguere, Amanda. The Plays of Yasmina Reza on the English and American Stage. Jefferson: McFarland, 2010. Print.
Hohenadel, Kristin. “Going beyond Laughs.” Los Angeles Times. Tribune, 17 Jan. 1999. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.
Karwowski, Michael. “Yasmina Reza: From Art to The God of Carnage.” Contemporary Review Spring 2009: 75–83. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.
Reza, Yasmina. “From Dawn to Dusk: A Conversation with Yasmina Reza.” Interview by David A. Andelman. World Policy Journal 25.3 (2008): 233–35. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.
Sciolino, Elaine. “Celebrated Playwright Who Resists Celebrity.” New York Times. New York Times, 24 May 2011. Web. 5 Apr. 2016.