Yasmina Reza | |
---|---|
Born | Évelyne Agnès Yasmina Reza 1 May 1959 Paris, France |
Occupation(s) | Writer, actress |
Children | 2 |
Yasmina Reza (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]
On 24 November 2007, her play Le Dieu du Carnage ( God of Carnage ), directed by Jürgen Gosch and performed first in Zürich, received the Viennese Nestroy Theatre Prize for the best German-language performance of the season. [11] It opened in London in March 2008, directed by Matthew Warchus in a translation by Christopher Hampton starring Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig, Janet McTeer and Ken Stott. [15] It was produced once again by David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers. The London production won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, which Hampton accepted on her behalf. Hampton told the audience that Reza would be thrilled by the win. [16] The play premiered on Broadway with an opening night cast of James Gandolfini, Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden, and Hope Davis. God of Carnage won Best Play at the 2009 Tony Awards.
In collaboration with Polanski, Reza wrote the screenplay adaptation of her own play God of Carnage for the 2011 Polanski film Carnage. [2] She was nominated at the European Film Awards and won a César Award for her screenwriting and the film won a Little Gold Lion at the 68th Venice International Film Festival.
Her 2016 novel, Babylone, received the Prix Renaudot. The English version, translated by Linda Asher, was published by Seven Stories Press in 2018.
The César Award is the national film award of France. It is delivered in the Nuit des César ceremony and was first awarded in 1976. The nominations are selected by the members of twelve categories of filmmaking professionals and supported by the French Ministry of Culture. The nationally televised award ceremony is held in Paris each year in February. The exact location has changed over the years. It is an initiative of the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, which was founded in 1975.
Janet McTeer is an English actress. She began her career training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before earning acclaim for playing diverse roles on stage and screen in both period pieces and modern dramas. She has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Olivier Award, a Golden Globe Award and nominations for two Academy Award and Primetime Emmy Award. In 2008 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama.
'Art' is a French-language play by Yasmina Reza that premiered in 1994 at Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris. The play subsequently ran in London in 1996 and on Broadway in 1998.
Tamsin Margaret Mary Greig is a British actress and narrator. She is known for both dramatic and comedic roles. She played Fran Katzenjammer in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, Dr Caroline Todd in the Channel 4 sitcom Green Wing, Beverly Lincoln in British-American sitcom Episodes and Jackie Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Other roles include Alice Chenery in BBC One's comedy-drama series Love Soup, Debbie Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's soap opera The Archers, Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma, and Beth Hardiment in the 2010 film version of Tamara Drewe. In 2020, Greig starred as Anne Trenchard in Julian Fellowes' ITV series Belgravia.
Sir Christopher James Hampton is a British playwright, screenwriter, translator and film director. He is best known for his play Les Liaisons Dangereuses based on the novel of the same name and the film adaptation. He has thrice received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay: for Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Atonement (2007) and The Father (2020); winning for the former and latter.
The Prix Théophraste-Renaudot or Prix Renaudot is a French literary award.
Matthew Warchus is an English theatre director, filmmaker and dramaturg. He has been the Artistic Director of London's The Old Vic since September 2015.
Kenneth Campbell Stott is a Scottish stage, television and film actor who won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1995 in the play Broken Glass at Royal National Theatre. He portrayed the dwarf Balin in The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014).
The Unexpected Man is a play written in 1995 by Yasmina Reza. The play is set in a train from Paris to Frankfurt, with two people sharing a compartment. One is a famous author, and the other is a woman who admires his work.
The Molière Award is the national theatre award of France and it recognises achievement of French theatre each year. The awards are considered the highest honour for productions and performances. Presided and decided by the Association professionnelle et artistique du théâtre (APAT), supported by the Ministry of Culture in a ceremony annually held, called the Nuit des Molières in Paris.
God of Carnage is a play by Yasmina Reza that was first published in 2008. It is about two sets of parents; the son of one couple has hurt the son of the other couple at a public park. The parents meet to discuss the matter in a civilized manner. However, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish and the meeting devolves into chaos. Originally written in French, the play was translated into English by translator Christopher Hampton, and has enjoyed acclaim in productions in both London and New York.
Les Liaisons dangereuses is a 1985 play by Christopher Hampton adapted from the 1782 novel of the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The plot focuses on the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, rivals who use sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation, all the while enjoying their cruel games. Their targets are the virtuous Madame de Tourvel and Cécile de Volanges, a young girl who has fallen in love with her music tutor, the Chevalier Danceny. In order to gain their trust, Merteuil and Valmont pretend to help the secret lovers so they can use them later in their own treacherous schemes.
Jean-Claude Grumberg is a French playwright and author of children's books.
Éric Elmosnino is a French actor and musician. He is known internationally for portraying Serge Gainsbourg in Gainsbourg, for which he won the César Award for Best Actor.
David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers, are two West End and Broadway theatre producers.
Carnage is a 2011 black comedy film directed by Roman Polanski, based on the Tony Award-winning 2006 play Le Dieu du carnage by French playwright Yasmina Reza. The screenplay is by Reza and Polanski. The film is an international co-production of France, Germany, Poland, and Spain. It stars Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and John C. Reilly. In this comedy of errors, two sets of parents try to resolve a situation in a civilised manner as their idiosyncrasies rise to the surface.
Christian Laurin is a Canadian film, television and stage actor who performs in both English and French productions.
Vienna's English Theatre(VET), located in Vienna, Austria, is the oldest and most established English-language theatre in continental Europe.
Dominique Reymond is a French actress. She has appeared in more than seventy films since 1984.
Le Père is a play by the French playwright Florian Zeller that won in 2014 the Molière Award for Best Play. It premiered in September 2012 at the Théâtre Hébertot, Paris, with Robert Hirsch (André) and Isabelle Gélinas (Anne).
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