Yasmina Reza's award-winning comedy ''Art'' is
collected here with three more of her sharp witty and
sexy plays, all translated with elegance and elan by
Christopher Hampton. Art Serge has bought a modern
painting for a huge sum of money. Mark hates it and
cannot believe that a friend of his could possibly want
such a work. Yvan attempts, unsuccessfully, to placate
both sides. The question is, are you who you think you
are or are you who your friends think you are? If your
friendship is based on tacit mutual agreement, what
happens when one person does something completely
different? ''Life x 3'': Henri and Sonia are putting
their son to bed when an unexpected knock at the door
throws them into disarray. Hubert and Ines have arrived
for dinner, a day earlier than expected. As the evening
degenerates, Yasmina Reza blends cruel observations with
high comedy in an hilarious and poignant examinatioin of
our most personal intimacies and private longings. The
Unexpected Man. A train compartment. A man and a
woman.In a series of dazzling internal monologues, the
man, a novelist, muses on his latest work, contemplates
the futility of writing and considers his life in terms
of his daughter, her lover and the workings of Ex-Lax on
his digestive system. The woman thinks of her life, her
loves and friendships in the full knowledge that the man
she is facing is the novelist she admires and would love
to speak to, and whose latest work she has tucked in her
handbag. ''Conversations After a Burial'': Simon
Weinberg is dead. On a November morning, six people
gather at his funeral - siblings, lovers and in-laws.
Mourning allows them special privilege and, for a few
hours, they are isolated in another world under a
lingering sun, in the shadow of the deceased.
''Conversations After a Burial'' examines the intense
pause between loss and life; between absence and the
return to everyday existence. |
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