MARTIN ANDRUCKI · BATES COLLEGE ·
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Yasmina Reza.

Yasmina Reza was born in 1959.  After studying at Paris X University and at the Jacques Lecoq Drama School, she began her career in theater as an actress.  She wrote her first play, Conversatons after a Burial, in 1987, and scored an immediate success as a dramatist, the play winning the Molière Award for best author—France's equivalent of a Tony. Her next play, Winter Crossing, was similarly successful, garnering a Molière Award in 1990 for the best "fringe" show of that year.  (A "fringe production" is, like an Off-Off-Broadway show in New York, one which appears in a theater well outside the commercial mainstream.)
 
Her best-known work, Art, opened in Paris in 1994.  Once again, Reza won Moliere prizes, this time a trio of awards for best author, best play, and best production. Art was also honored in London as best comedy and in Germany as best foreign play.
 
Reza has also written for the movies, with two of her films, See You Tomorrow and Lulu Kreutz's Picnic, having been seen in Europe. She is also the author of Hammerklavier,  a novel  published in 1997.
 
Art concerns a man who spends a small fortune on an all-white painting, thus provoking a quarrel with his best friend who is outraged by this act of extravagance.  This drama about a cultural quarrel involving three affluent, educated, and urbane Parisians reflects Reza's own cosmopolitan social background.  She is the daughter of a Hungarian mother and a Persian father of Jewish ancestry.  Both her parents are musical, her mother having achieved professional stature as a violinist.  Thus, when she writes about "art" she does so as the child of artists, and as a practitioner of art, someone whose entire life has been spent in an environment shaped by artistic goals and values.
 
Serious as the subject of "art" might seem, the play's reputation as an uproariously funny comedy has been something of a surprise for its author.  She has lamented the fact that "people laugh so much they miss some of the lines."  In fact, she says, she was convinced the play was failing dismally during its opening night.  While pacing backstage, she told an interviewer, "I was completely depressed. I heard the audience laughing, laughing, almost from the first. I thought it's a catastrophe, the play is becoming stupid entertainment. I said if they laughed at a certain point later on, I'd jump out the window. Fortunately, they didn't."   Reza did not reveal what point in the script that was
 
Following Art's phenomenal success in France, film director Claude Berri, a friend of Reza's, invited her to view his personal gallery of all-white paintings by Robert Ryman, an American artist.  Says Reza of the work, "It's great decoration, very cool, but I absolutely don't understand how it can cost so much money."  As in the play, the arguments about the meaning and value of art seem to remain unresolved in the author's own mind.
  • Home
    • About me
    • Resources
  • The Public Theater
    • Titles A thru G >
      • A >
        • All in the Timing
        • Almost Maine
        • Animals Out of Paper
        • Around the World in 80 Days
        • Art
      • B >
        • Betrayal
        • Biloxi Blues
        • Blithe Spirit
        • The Book Club Play
        • Broadway Bound
        • To Build a Fire
        • The Business of Murder
      • C >
        • A Christmas Carol
        • The Cocktail Hour
        • Collected Stories
        • Communicating Doors
        • The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged
        • Crossing Delancey
      • D >
        • Dancing at Lughnasa
        • Deathtrap
        • Doubt
        • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
        • Dracula
        • Driving Miss Daisy
      • E >
        • Educating Rita
      • F >
        • Fallen Angels
        • Fiction
        • The Foreigner
        • Fuddy Meers
      • G >
        • The Glass Menagerie
        • Good People
        • Gun Shy
    • Titles H thru O >
      • H >
        • Hedda Gabler
        • Holiday Memories
        • The Hound of the Baskervilles
        • Humble Boy
      • I >
        • Indoor/Outdoor
        • An Infinite Ache
        • Italian American Reconciliation
      • L >
        • The Language Archive
        • Last Gas
        • The Last Mass
        • The Last Romance
        • Lend me a Tenor
        • Lips Together
        • Lost in Yonkers
        • Love/Sick
      • M >
        • Manny's War
        • Marjorie Prime
        • Marvin's Room
        • Miss Witherspoon
        • A Month of Sundays
        • Moonlight and Magnolias
        • Moonshine
      • N >
        • The Nerd
      • O >
        • The Old Settler
        • On Golden Pond
        • Orphans
        • Outside Mullingar
        • Over the River
    • Titles P thru W >
      • P >
        • Pavillion
        • Prelude to a Kiss
        • Private Lives
        • Proof
        • Psychopathia Sexualis
      • R >
        • Red
        • Red Herring
        • The Revolutionists
        • Rough Crossing
        • Rumors
      • S >
        • Seascape
        • Shirley Valentine
        • Side Man
        • Skylight
        • Sleuth
        • Southern Comforts
        • Steel Magnolias
      • T >
        • Terra Nova
        • 13th of Paris
        • Three Days of Rain
        • Tigers Be Still
        • Time Stands Still
      • U >
        • Under the Skin
      • V >
        • Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike
        • Visiting Mr. Green
      • W >
        • Wait Until Dark
        • What Rhymes with America
        • The Wind in the Willows
        • The Woman in Black
        • Wrong for Each Other
  • Portland Theater
    • Season 93 94 I
    • Season 93 94 II
    • Season 94 95 I
    • Season 94 95 II
    • Season 95 96
    • Season 96 97
    • Fool for Love
    • Ghosts
  • Playwrights
    • Albee to Coward >
      • Edward Albee
      • David Auburn
      • Alan Ayckbourne
      • Truman Capote
      • John Cariani
      • Noel Coward
    • Dickens to Harris >
      • Charles Dickens
      • Joe DiPietro
      • Arthur Conan Doyle
      • Tom Dudzick
      • Christopher Durang
      • Brian Friel
      • A.R. Gurney
      • Richard Harris
    • Ibsen to Nolan >
      • Henrik Ibsen
      • David Ives
      • Rajiv Joseph
      • Ira Levin
      • David Lindsay-Abaire
      • Jack London
      • Ken Ludwig
      • Donald Margulies
      • James Nolan
    • Pinter to Shue >
      • Harold Pinter
      • Yasmina Reza
      • Willy Russell
      • Susan Sandler
      • Robert W. Service
      • John Patrick Shanley
      • Larry Shue
    • Simon to Zacarias >
      • Neil Simon
      • Mat Smart
      • Craig White
      • Tennessee Williams
      • Karen Zacarias