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Stage

Behind the facade

In Life x 3, repeated permutations of a scene let us get to know the play's true characters.

By ROBERT HICKS
Published August 10, 2006

Banyan Theater Company artistic director Gil Lazier says comedy is far more than a laughing matter.

"I always approach comedies very seriously," he says. "You have to understand comedy on a very serious level. You can't make it funny. Once you get the serious dimensions of a play, you can look at the setups, the gags and the comedy."

Lazier first became interested in contemporary Iranian-French playwright Yasmina Reza a few years ago when he directed her comic play Art at the Asolo Theatre. Now he's bringing her Life x 3 to the Jane B. Cook Theatre at FSU's Center for the Performing Arts in Sarasota tonight though Aug. 27.

The play "reminds me of Restoration comedy in English and of Moliere," says Lazier. "Reza lives in Paris and she writes in French. She makes satirical and cynical commentary on the French sensibility. It's about the comedy of French intellectuals getting together at a dinner party and talking about the meaning of life."

Henri (Eric Hissom) and his wife, Sonia (Heather Corwin), are having a tough time controlling their 6-year-old son, Arnaud. Henri is a junior- level astrophysicist who has invited celebrated astrophysicist Hubert (Douglas Jones) and his rebellious wife, Inez (Geraldine Librandi), to dinner in hopes of advancing his career.

"A troublesome development happens when Hubert and Inez show up on the wrong night. Henri and Sonia are not ready for them and so ensues this kind of comedy of errors," Lazier says.

The two astrophysicists discuss Henri's research paper, "On The Flatness of Galaxy Halos," revealing their need to find order and unity in the universe via their dinner talk about black halos, galaxies, string theory and existential angst.

"The play gets astronomical on one level. At the same time, we see how human and crass the characters are at another level. In the last act, they get into a discussion of existential existence, but it's always contrasted to the human foibles that these people commit all the time," says Lazier.

Reza tells the story of these two couples' lives in three acts. Each act presents the same event, but we learn more and more about these people through various permutations in the characters and in their language at the dinner party.

"We learn that Hubert is an extreme egotist and that his wife, Inez, is much maligned," says Lazier. "Sonia kicks around Henri and Hubert kicks around Inez, not quite in the same way, but they are similar kinds of relationships. In the three acts, we have the same event, but with different details. It's kind of like a Chinese puzzle."

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Life x 3, tonight through Aug. 27, Banyan Theater Company. 8 p.m. today-Fri., 2 and 8 p.m. Sat., 2 p.m. Sun., 8 p.m. Wed. Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $27.50 (941) 358-5330; www.banyantheatercompany.com.

[Last modified August 8, 2006, 13:34:05]