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Life x 3

Life x 3

by Christopher Hampton (Translator), Christopher Hampton (Translator), Christopher Hampton (Translator), Yasmina Reza (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2001

    $14.92
Synopsis

From the celebrated writer of Art, a scathingly hilarious commentary on vanity, professional insecurity, and the vicissitudes of marriage.

Life X 3 presents three versions of two couples (and an offstage six-year-old) trying to make a success of one evening despite the fact that they neither like nor respect one another. When Hubert and Ines arrive a day early to dinner at the home of Henri and Sophie, Sophie barely has time to change out of her robe and Ines is in a foul mood about a run in her stocking-from there, the evening can only go downhill. Over an improvised meal of chocolate fingers, potato chips, and wine, the couples trade insults on every social and professional level and loyalties are changed with the same rapidity that glasses of Sancerre are drained. However, as she has so astutely done in the past, Yasmina Reza uses these acidic exchanges to illuminate the innate desire for love and acceptance in us all.

$14.92

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 76
 Edition: First Edition
 Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 17 Oct 2001
ISBN 10: 0571207383
ISBN 13: 9780571207381

Media Reviews
Praise for the London premiere of Life X 3 by Yasmina Reza:
[Reza] has perfected the technique of combining light comedy with the play of ideas . . . [ Life X 3]is clever, it's elegant, it's entertaining. -- Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph
[Reza] is the most exported living playwright on the planet, a woman whose culturally rich background has given her real insight into the melting pot of today's society . . . Life X 3 ruminate[s] on man's place in the universe . . . Her amalgamation of laughs with smart arguments and flashes of raw emotion is a crowd-pulling recipe . . . [Her] social satire is often cryingly funny. -- Kate Bassett, The Independent
Alan Ayckbourn meets Edward Albee . . . The writing is sharp, the observation spot-on. --Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday
The Grand Chaos Theory . . . is applied to a Parisian dinner-party in Yasmina Reza's delightful . . . comedy of manners. Life X 3 is designed to show how chance, with its impact upon our actions and behaviour, changes everything . . . A wicked pleasure to behold. Miss Reza is a star-reporter at the sex-war front and a thorough mocker of male pretensions. --Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard
Adroitly translated by Christopher Hampton . . . LIfe X 3 amounts to pleasure-in-triplicate. --Paul Taylor, The Independent

Praise for the London premiere of Life X 3 by Yasmina Reza:

[Reza] has perfected the technique of combining light comedy with the play of ideas . . . [ Life X 3 ]is clever, it's elegant, it's entertaining. -- Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

[Reza] is the most exported living playwright on the planet, a woman whose culturally rich background has given her real insight into the melting pot of today's society . . . Life X 3 ruminate[s] on man's place in the universe . . . Her amalgamation of laughs with smart arguments and flashes of raw emotion is a crowd-pulling recipe . . . [Her] social satire is often cryingly funny. -- Kate Bassett, The Independent

Alan Ayckbourn meets Edward Albee . . . The writing is sharp, the observation spot-on. --Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday

The Grand Chaos Theory . . . is applied to a Parisian dinner-party in Yasmina Reza's delightful . . . comedy of manners. Life X 3 is designed to show how chance, with its impact upon our actions and behaviour, changes everything . . . A wicked pleasure to behold. Miss Reza is a star-reporter at the sex-war front and a thorough mocker of male pretensions. --Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard

Adroitly translated by Christopher Hampton . . . LIfe X 3 amounts to pleasure-in-triplicate. --Paul Taylor, The Independent

[Reza] has perfected the technique of combining light comedy with the play of ideas . . . [ Life X 3 ]is clever, it's elegant, it's entertaining. -- Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph
[Reza] is the most exported living playwright on the planet, a woman whose culturally rich background has given her real insight into the melting pot of today's society . . . Life X 3 ruminate[s] on man's place in the universe . . . Her amalgamation of laughs with smart arguments and flashes of raw emotion is a crowd-pulling recipe . . . [Her] social satire is often cryingly funny. -- Kate Bassett, The Independent
Alan Ayckbourn meets Edward Albee . . . The writing is sharp, the observation spot-on. --Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday
The Grand Chaos Theory . . . is applied to a Parisian dinner-party in Yasmina Reza's delightful . . . comedy of manners. Life X 3 is designed to show how chance, with its impact upon our actions and behaviour, changes everything . . . A wicked pleasure to behold. Miss Reza is a star-reporter at the sex-war front and a thorough mocker of male pretensions. --Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard
Adroitly translated by Christopher Hampton . . . LIfe X 3 amounts to pleasure-in-triplicate. --Paul Taylor, The Independent

[Reza] has perfected the technique of combining light comedy with the play of ideas . . . [ Life X 3 ]is clever, it's elegant, it's entertaining. Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

[Reza] is the most exported living playwright on the planet, a woman whose culturally rich background has given her real insight into the melting pot of today's society . . . Life X 3 ruminate[s] on man's place in the universe . . . Her amalgamation of laughs with smart arguments and flashes of raw emotion is a crowd-pulling recipe . . . [Her] social satire is often cryingly funny. Kate Bassett, The Independent

Alan Ayckbourn meets Edward Albee . . . The writing is sharp, the observation spot-on. Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday

The Grand Chaos Theory . . . is applied to a Parisian dinner-party in Yasmina Reza's delightful . . . comedy of manners. Life X 3 is designed to show how chance, with its impact upon our actions and behaviour, changes everything . . . A wicked pleasure to behold. Miss Reza is a star-reporter at the sex-war front and a thorough mocker of male pretensions. Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard

Adroitly translated by Christopher Hampton . . . LIfe X 3 amounts to pleasure-in-triplicate. Paul Taylor, The Independent


[Reza] has perfected the technique of combining light comedy with the play of ideas . . . [Life X 3]is clever, it's elegant, it's entertaining. Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

[Reza] is the most exported living playwright on the planet, a woman whose culturally rich background has given her real insight into the melting pot of today's society . . . Life X 3 ruminate[s] on man's place in the universe . . . Her amalgamation of laughs with smart arguments and flashes of raw emotion is a crowd-pulling recipe . . . [Her] social satire is often cryingly funny. Kate Bassett, The Independent

Alan Ayckbourn meets Edward Albee . . . The writing is sharp, the observation spot-on. Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday

The Grand Chaos Theory . . . is applied to a Parisian dinner-party in Yasmina Reza's delightful . . . comedy of manners. Life X 3 is designed to show how chance, with its impact upon our actions and behaviour, changes everything . . . A wicked pleasure to behold. Miss Reza is a star-reporter at the sex-war front and a thorough mocker of male pretensions. Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard

Adroitly translated by Christopher Hampton . . . LIfe X 3 amounts to pleasure-in-triplicate. Paul Taylor, The Independent


[Reza] has perfected the technique of combining light comedy with the play of ideas . . . [Life X 3]is clever, it's elegant, it's entertaining. --Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph

[Reza] is the most exported living playwright on the planet, a woman whose culturally rich background has given her real insight into the melting pot of today's society . . . Life X 3 ruminate[s] on man's place in the universe . . . Her amalgamation of laughs with smart arguments and flashes of raw emotion is a crowd-pulling recipe . . . [Her] social satire is often cryingly funny. --Kate Bassett, The Independent

Alan Ayckbourn meets Edward Albee . . . The writing is sharp, the observation spot-on. --Georgina Brown, Mail on Sunday

The Grand Chaos Theory . . . is applied to a Parisian dinner-party in Yasmina Reza's delightful . . . comedy of manners. Life X 3 is designed to show how chance, with its impact upon our actions and behaviour, changes everything . . . A wicked pleasure to behold. Miss Reza is a star-reporter at the sex-war front and a thorough mocker of male pretensions. --Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard

Adroitly translated by Christopher Hampton . . . LIfe X 3 amounts to pleasure-in-triplicate. --Paul Taylor, The Independent

Author Bio
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 and The Talking Cure. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Moliere, von Horvath, Chekhov and Yasmina Reza (including Art and Life x 3). 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. 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.