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Birth of Yasmina Reza
Yasmina Reza's parents were both Jewish. Her father was a businessman, engineer, and pianist. While, her mother was a violinist. Yasmina Reza was born on May 1, 1959 in Paris, France. She is a French screenwriter, novelist, actress, and playwright, with a total of 10 plays. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yasmina-Reza) -
Education
Yasmina Reza got her education in Paris. She got a degree in art while attending Paris Nanterre University and she got further education by attending Jacques Lecoq, a drama school. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yasmina-Reza) -
Marriage
Didier Martiny, who's a movie director, actor, and screenwriter, is Yasmina Reza's husband and they have 2 children together. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yasmina-Reza) -
Influence on Reza's Writing
Her successful parents and their way to express art, is what inspired and influenced Yasmina Reza's love for art and writing. Her kids are also another reason, as they give her strength and motivation. (https://www.bard.org/study-guides/about-the-playwright-art/#:~:text=By%20Don%20Leavitt,relationship%20between%20actor%20and%20script.) -
First Play & 1st Award
Reza's first play was Conversations After a Burial, which was an award winning play from the Moliere Award for Best Author. This play is about 6 individuals who attend Simon Weinberg's funeral and some unexpected facts are revealed, creating dramatic tension and family drama. However, overall it does explore the ineffable moment of mourning. (https://www.completereview.com/reviews/rezay/cafterab.htm) -
The Unexpected Man
This is Reza's second play. It's about a famous author named Parsky, and a woman, Martha, who carries his latest novel in her bag and ponders the dilemma of reading it in front of him. It mainly consists of internal monologue, as it shows that these 2 characters reveal their thoughts to the audience, rather than to each other. However, it does touch on the theme of loneliness, emptiness, and the difficulty of making connections with others. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The Unexpected Man) -
Daughter's Birth
Her eldest daughter is Alta Reza, who's 35 years old and has a successful career as a criminal lawyer. (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jan/22/yasmina-reza-interview-carnage-polanski) -
Winter Crossing
Winter Crossing is Reza's third play. It won a Moliere for best fringe production. It's about the unlikely friendship that develops between six people spending their vacation at a Swiss mountain resort, representing the theme of camaraderie. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yasmina-Reza) -
Son's Birth
Nathan Reza is her youngest son, who's currently 30 years old, and he's attempting to start his career as a singer. (https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jan/22/yasmina-reza-interview-carnage-polanski) -
Art
This was Reza's fourth play, it includes 3 friends: Marc, Serge, and Yvan. They all get into a disagreement, that leaves them to question their friendship, due to Serge buying an art piece, which is just a white canvas, for $200,000. Overall, it represents ego and friendship. It's one of the popular works of Reza, and successful in winning a Moliere Awards for best author, play, and production. Along with a British Laurence Olivier Award for best comedy and finally, a Tony Award for best play. -
Hammerklavier
This was Yasmina Reza's first novel, in which she composed of a series of vignettes inspired by memories of her father. She contemplates ephemeral and death in her young daughter's toothless smile, secretly mourning that it will inevitably change. Overall, we see the loving relationship Reza shared with her father. This novel symbolizes family, love, lost and time passing. (https://books.google.com/books/about/Hammerklavier_a_Memoir.html?id=ue5cAAAAMAAJ&source=kp_book_ description) -
Life X 3
This was Reza's fifth play, it's about a tedious exploration of the falling apart of social conventions as an arguing couple are interrupted by the husband's boss and his wife who show up a day early for a dinner engagement. Reza offers 3 perspectives with each scenario unfolding differently, demonstrating different emotional reactions and how easily both external forces and personal choices can dictate life events. (https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/reza-yasmina-1959) -
A Spanish Play
This was Reza's sixth play. It's basically a play within a play due to the fact that it includes actors rehearsing an untitled play by a Spanish playwright. The action – or inaction, as it were – is all too often interrupted by unbearably sincere confessions from the actors rehearsing. Overall, it brings a moment of emotional clarity and leads to the theme of happiness. (https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/opinionist-a-spanish-play) -
God of Carnage
This is another well known play by Yasmina Reza. It won a Laurence Olivier award and a Tony award. This play was inspired by a real-life experience, in which her son got into a physical fight with a friend. It focuses on two parents who discuss the fight between their young sons, leading to the theme of conflict and human nature. https://www.thoughtco.com/god-of-carnage-overview-2713426#:~:text=Conflict%20and%20human%20nature%20when,families%20and%20their%20complex%20personalities. -
Chicas -- Girls
The title of a production that Reza wrote and directed. It's actually the play being rehearsed within Reza's 6th play, A Spanish Play. It's about Pilar, a Spanish woman who lives in France with her 3 daughters. She organizes a lunch in her home with the intention of introducing Fernand, a guy she's in love with, to the rest of the family. The reunion goes wildly wrong and the family's craziness overtakes. Overall, it represents family, chaos, and love. (https://trakt.tv/movies/chicas-2010) -
How You Talk The Game
This was Reza's 8th play, which is a psychological work that centers on verbal play and the strains that arise within a conversation among 4 people. A novelist, Nathalie, is invited to present one of her newest novels. She's similar to Yasmina Reza because she's eerily close to herself, and hides her true self within her beautifully formal clothing. Overall, this play represents vulnerability and appreciation. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/theater/yasmina-reza-on-how-you-talk-the-game.html -
Carnage
This screenplay is a black comedy that's based on God of Carnage, which is also by Yasmina Reza and it involves an altercation with 2 kids, and the parents try to talk things over. It starts off as polite but descends into finger pointing, tantrums and insults. It won a total of 9 awards, some include the Golden Globe Awards, César Award for best writing, and it won the Little Golden Lion award from the Venice International Film Festival. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnage_(2011_film)) -
Bella Figura -- Beautiful Figure
This is Yasmina Reza's 9th play. It's about a man and his mistress going to a restaurant, that his wife has recommended, only to bump into one of her friends in the parking lot. Overall, it demonstrates the theme of love, family, friendship, and inner anxiety. -
Babylon
Reza's novel, Babylon includes 2 couples who are neighbors: Elisabeth and her husband Pierre & Jean and his wife Lydie, who are invited to Elisabeth’s dinner party. The party goes great until Jean and Lydie get into an argument and leave to continue it at home. Later, Jean confesses to Elisabeth and Pierre that he strangled Lydie. In secret, Elisabeth and Jean try to move Lydies lifeless body. However, Elisabeth seems to be a little detached, as if she was on the outside, watching herself. -
Covid-19
The infectious disease of Covid-19 effected Yasmina Reza and her work due to having to find alterative ways to do her performances. The San Francisco Playhouse offered screenings of Yasmina Reza’s play “Art", in 2020. It was captured live by multiple cameras, with a crucial wrestling scene being altered to keep social distancing. The connection between the actors and audience was weak due to it not being an in person performance, and instead it was a recorded performance. -
James Brown Wore Curlers
The title of Reza's 10th and newest play. It's about a French couple whose son believes he’s Celine Dion and his only friend Philippe, a white patient claims to be Black. The play mainly takes place in a psychiatric ward and a park. It sways between comedy and melancholy, along with identity and difference. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/27/theater/james-brown-wore-curlers-review-yasmina-reza.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap) -
Additional Awards & Honors
Yasmina Reza won a total of 14 awards for her successful works. Some that haven't been mentioned yet are: 1988 Molière Award for Translation (Metamorphosis)
2000 Grand Prize of the Theater of the French Academy
2005 The Literary World Prize
2012 Cinema Writers Circle Award (also know as The CEC Awards) for Best Adapted Screenplay for Carnage
2016 Renaudot Prize for Babylon
2020 Jonathan Swift Award (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasmina_Reza)