Yasmina Reza: Plays (268 pages)

Other than Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. my favorite French playwright, Yasmina Reza pretty much tops the charts in France. I definitely didn't like her plays as much as Schmitt's, however, comparing them is kind of unfair. Schmitt writes warm narratives with philosophical observations offered at every turn of the page like mental cups of hot coco. Reza, on the other hand, constructs her plays in a very abstract manner, and therefore they present themselves as confrontational, rather than outrightly welcoming, works. All of the plays in this book--'Art,' The Unexpected Man, Conversations after a Burial, and Life x 3--are conversation based. Now that sounds stupid, as reading a play is literally just reading dialogue. But plot and setting are truly secondary or nonexistent in Reza's works. The dialogues of her characters unfold scene after scene, not much happening other than the peeling away of her characters' emotional layers. But this peeling away is really a peeling away at the exterior of ourselves. The ultimate truth of Reza's plays--that our selves are fleeting, complex systems which depend greatly on our relationships with others--reveals itself disturbingly again and again. Each play represents "a man who moves across a space and disappears." Reading this book reminds me that we can so easily lose ourselves, a philosophically induced amnesia that takes my breath away.