Yasmina Reza (French:[ʁeza]; born 1 May 1959)[1] is a French playwright, actress, novelist and screenwriter best known for her plays 'Art' and God of Carnage. Many of her brief satiric plays have reflected on contemporary middle-class issues. The 2011 black comedy film Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski, was based on Reza's Tony Award-winning 2006 play God of Carnage.[2]
Reza's father was a Russian-born[3][4][5]Bukharan Jewish[6][7][8] engineer, businessman, and pianist and her mother was a Jewish Hungarian violinist from Budapest.[9][10][11] During the Nazi occupation, her father was deported from Nice to Drancy internment camp.[12] At the beginning of her career, Reza acted in several new plays as well as in plays by Molière and Marivaux.
In 1987, she wrote Conversations after a Burial, which won the Molière Award, the French equivalent of the Tony Award, for Best Author. The North American production premiered in February 2013 at Players by the Sea in Jacksonville Beach Florida. Holly Gutshall and Joe Schwarz directed; with Set Design by Anne Roberts. The cast for this US debut was Kevin Bodge, Paul Carelli, Karen Overstreet, Dave Gowan, Holly Gutshall and Olivia Gowan Snell. Reza translated Roman Polanski's stage version of Kafka's Metamorphosis in the late 1980s.[13]
Her second play, Winter Crossing, won the 1990 Molière Award for Best Fringe Production, and her next play, The Unexpected Man, enjoyed successful productions in England, France, Scandinavia, Germany and New York.
In 1994, 'Art' premiered in Paris and went on to win the Molière Award for Best Author. Since then it has been produced internationally and translated and performed in over 30 languages.[8] The London production, produced by David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers, received the 1996–97 Laurence Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award, the former is the British equivalent of the Tony's. It also won the Tony Award for Best Play. Life X 3 has also been produced in Europe, North America and Australia. Screenwriting credits include See You Tomorrow, starring Jeanne Moreau and directed by Reza's then-partner Didier Martiny.
In September 1997, her first novel, Hammerklavier, was published and another work of fiction, Une Désolation, was published in 2001. Her 2007 work L'Aube le Soir ou la Nuit (Dawn Evening or Night), written after a year of following the campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy, caused a sensation in France.[14]
^"Yasmina Reza talks about the influence of her late father". The Guardian. 3 September 2000. Archived from the original on 18 November 2022.
^Yasmina Reza, écrivain d' "Art": De son père, juif séfarade, mi-russe, mi-iranien, dont le grand-père jouait aux échecs dans les caravansérails de Samarkand.
^"The art of a second success". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 February 2016.
^ abThe tears and laughter of Yasmina Reza’s lost Babylon
^Pigeat, Aurélien (2005). 'Art', 1994: Yasmina Reza (in French). Paris: Hatier. ISBN 2-218-75089-9.
^Between Sarkozy and Sarcasm: Playwright Yasmina Reza on What Makes a Person Powerful
^Day, Elizabeth (22 January 2012). "Yasmina Reza: 'There's no point in writing theatre if it's not accessible'". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
^Sciolino, Elaine (24 August 2007). "Portrait of President, Craving Power, Enthralls France". The New York Times.
^Paddock, Terri (24 December 2007). "Greig, McTeer & Stott Join Fiennes God of Carnage". What's on Stage. Archived from the original on 25 December 2007. Retrieved 24 December 2007.
^Staff (8 March 2009). "Speeches: And the Laurence Olivier Winners Said". WhatsonStage.com. Archived from the original on 10 March 2009. Retrieved 8 March 2009.
^"Yasmina Reza erhält WELT-Literaturpreis 2005 für ihr Lebenswerk". Buch Markt (in German). 7 October 2005. Retrieved 11 November 2012.
^Stéphanie Dupays (3 November 2016). "Le prix Goncourt est décerné à Leïla Slimani". Le Monde. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
^Oury, Antoine (31 August 2020). "Yasmina Reza reçoit le Prix Jonathan Swift 2020". Actualitté. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
^The title is a German word for 'piano', used in particular by Beethoven for a late sonata.
Further readingedit
Les fruits de la passion: le théâtre de Yasmina Reza by Hélène Jaccomard (Bern: Peter Lang, 2013).
The Plays of Yasmina Reza on the English and American Stage by Amanda Giguere (McFarland, 2010).