Yasmina Reza Plays 1

Description

The first collection of Yasmina Reza's international hit plays. Reza's award-winning comedy Art is collected here with three more of her plays, all translated with elegance and elan by Christopher Hampton. This volume, which begins a series of her work, includes Art, Life x 3, Conversations after a Burial and The Unexpected Man.

Yasmina Reza is a French playwright and novelist, based in Paris, whose works have all been multi-award-winning, critical and popular international successes. Her plays, Conversations After a Burial, The Passage of Winter, Art, The Unexpected Man, Life x 3, A Spanish Play and The God of Carnage have been produced worldwide and translated into thirty-five languages. Novels include Hammerklavier, Une Desolation, Adam Haberberg, Dans la Luge d'Arther Schopenhauer, Nulle Part and L'Aube le Soir ou la Nuit. Film includes Le Pique-Nique de Lulu Kreutz directed by Didier Martiny. Christopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946. He wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother? at the age of eighteen. Since then, his plays have included The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, White Chameleon, The Talking Cure and Appomattox. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Moliere, von Horvath, Chekhov, Florian Zeller (including The Father), Daniel Kehlman and Yasmina Reza (including Art and Life x 3). Musicals include Sunset Boulevard and Stephen Ward, both with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black. His television work includes adaptations of The History Man and Hotel du Lac. His screenplays include The Honorary Consul, The Good Father, Dangerous Liaisons, Mary Reilly, Total Eclipse, The Quiet American, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed, and A Dangerous Method, based on his play The Talking Cure. Appomattox was first presented on the McGuire Proscenium Stage of the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, USA, in September 2012 as the centrepiece of a major retrospective of his plays and films. It was subsequently turned into an opera by Philip Glass and premiered at the Kennedy Center, Washington in November 2014. Christopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946. He wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, at the age of eighteen. Since then, his plays have included The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, White Chameleon, The Talking Cure, Appomattox and A German Life. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Moliere, von Horvath, Chekhov and Yasmina Reza. This is his seventh translation of a play by Florian Zeller, including The Father, which he subsequently co-wrote for the screen with Florian Zeller. His television work includes adaptations of The History Man, Hotel du Lac and The Singapore Grip. His screenplays include The Honorary Consul, The Good Father, Dangerous Liaisons, Mary Reilly, Total Eclipse, The Quiet American, Atonement, Cheri, A Dangerous Method, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed.

"Art: 'A remarkably wise, witty and intelligent comedy. Art has touched a universal nerve.' The Times; Life x 3: 'Pleasure in triplicate.' Independent; Conversations After a Burial: 'Reza brings to her characters a brooding, mature compassion.' Sunday Times; The Unexpected Man: 'Delicate and witty, neatly constructed and peppered with irony.' Financial Times; 'One of the most musical and psychologically acute playwrights today.' Financial Times"