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Une pièce espagnole
« Les acteurs sont des lâches.
Les acteurs n'ont pas de courage.
Moi le premier.
Les qualités humaines habituelles dans le monde normal sont contraires au bien de l'acteur. »
Cinq acteurs répètent une comédie : une réunion de famille au cours de laquelle une mère présente à ses deux filles et à son gendre, le nouvel homme de sa vie, un veuf gérant d'immeuble...
La création d'Une pièce espagnole aura lieu à partir du 20 janvier 2004, au théâtre de la Madeleine, dans une mise en scène de Luc Bondy.
Les acteurs n'ont pas de courage.
Moi le premier.
Les qualités humaines habituelles dans le monde normal sont contraires au bien de l'acteur. »
Cinq acteurs répètent une comédie : une réunion de famille au cours de laquelle une mère présente à ses deux filles et à son gendre, le nouvel homme de sa vie, un veuf gérant d'immeuble...
La création d'Une pièce espagnole aura lieu à partir du 20 janvier 2004, au théâtre de la Madeleine, dans une mise en scène de Luc Bondy.
- GenresPlays
132 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2004
1 person is currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Yasmina Reza
62 books590 followersYasmina Reza began work as an actress, appearing 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 for Best Author. Following this, she translated Kafka's Metamorphosis for Roman Polanski and was nominated for a Molière Award for Best Translation. Her second play, Winter Crossing, won the 1990 Molière for Best Fringe Production, and her next play The Unexpected Man, enjoyed successful productions in England, France, Scandinavia, Germany and New York. In 1995, Art premiered in Paris and went on to win the Molière Award for Best Author. Since then it has been produced world-wide and translated into 20 languages. The London production received the 1996-97 Olivier Award and Evening Standard Award. Screenwriting credits include See You Tomorrow, starring Jeanne Moreau and directed by Didier Martiny. In September 1997, her first novel, Hammerklavier, was published.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 20, 2021
Meh. I'm currently working my way through Yasmina Reza's complete body of work because she's one of my favorite playwrights but thus far, her older plays haven't really done it for me. I usually appreciate Reza for her unmatched ability to capture the human condition and write scenes that are so witty and boiling with life that I can't help but laugh or cry.
1) On the first layer, we get the "real" actors. Of course, they're technically still playing from an audience point of view but they act as if they were real people like you and me, only that they're actors and currently rehearsing a play called "Une pièce espagnole". On this layer, we only get short monologues from these actors in which they reflect on their roles and what acting means to them.
2) The second layer is the so-called "Une pièce espagnole". The five actors take the roles of Pilar, her fiancé Fernan, her daughters Nuria and Aurelia, and Aurelia's husband Mariano. At its core, the play is about a family reunion where the mother wants her daughters and her fiancé to finally get acquainted with one another. The play shows multiple scenes from their lives, all centering around love and relationships, and the apparent tension within this family. What's funny (or even more complicated, depending on how you look at it) is the fact that the three women (so the characters!) also have jobs as actresses, e.g. Nuria is a well-known film actress and Aurelia is a lesser-known theatre actress. So their musings about art and theatre and what success versus failure means in that context oftentimes mirror the musings from the "real" actors from layer one.
3) The third layer is the play within the play within the play. Brace yourself. Since Aurelia is also an actress, within the "pièce espagnole" we also get some scenes where she is rehearsing a fictional Bulgarian play with her husband Mariano. This third layer shows the story of a piano teacher and her older student and how they fall in love.
Well, I hope you don't have a headache know. The fact that all these three layers are constantly alternating within the play doesn't make it easier to understand, as you can imagine.
For me, the downfall of the play lay in the fact that I didn't quite get its purpose. Sure, it's nice to have some reflections on art and theatre but I found that there was nothing substantial in this play. No grander scheme. No lessons. Nothing of interest. It's a play that people working in the scene might find hilarious because it forces them to look in a mirror but most of these musings were very superficial and unoriginal, like an actress exclaiming: "I don't wear anything around my neck, I can't play with a frill!"
For Reza, life and theatre are closely connected: "Not because real life is shown on stage, but because real life includes a large portion of play and theatre includes a large portion of reality." And I totally agree and usually, Reza manages to capture exactly that. But, unfortunately, not in Une pièce espagnole. The play is empty. Empty of life, and empty of reality.
Like I hinted before, the reason why I hold Yasmina Reza in such high regard is her ability to write about the human condition. Her plays, even though often exaggerated in their dialogues, capture the reality of what it is to be human so well. She is so witty. And her humour usually lands with me. What she does best, in my humble opinion, is write scenes with tension. Her fight scenes and when characters are screaming at one another, often under the influence of alcohol, are always a delight to read.
In Une pièce espagnole, however, there was only one such scene. In the scene, Nuria criticises her sister Aurelia because Aurelia got her daughter a play vacuum cleaner for her birthday. Nuria thinks it's weird that a 3-year-old asked for that gift and she finds it even weirder that Lola (Aurelia's daughter) finds so much joy in vacuum cleaning their house. Aurelia tries to defend her daughter, but her husband only jokes that they had to get rid of the cleaning lady, and also her mother thinks that she's overreacting. It's such a great sense that truly made me laugh aloud. It shows the dynamics within the family so well, as there's always this underlying tension of jealousy between the sisters, as Nuria is pretty successful in her job, and Aurelia fears that she's only seen as a "petite-bourgeoise" by her family.
There are other scenes during which Reza tried to build tension but they didn't land for me. The tension between the mother and her daughters, which boils down to the mother feeling excluded and worthless all the time (Pilar: "You sacrifice most of your life to them, and one day you are no longer a person, but really no longer a person.") and the daughters being embarrassed of their hysterical mother, didn't do anything for me. All the characters were so annoying and downright nasty to one another.
There was also tension about the third sister, who isn't physically present in the play, as the mother learns that she is pregnant and has a lover. Again, I didn't get the purpose of this subplot and therefore, Crystal (the third sister) remained flat and wasn't of interest to me.
It's weird to play an actress, I feel like I have to point out that she's an actress, the director says, just be yourself, but what is myself? What is myself as an actress? Is there such a thing?Une pièce espagnole (2004) is a play within a play within a play. Yes, Yasmina Reza loves to get meta and I usually enjoy her clever premises but for this play, it took me a while to figure out what was actually going on. Basically, the play has three layers:
1) On the first layer, we get the "real" actors. Of course, they're technically still playing from an audience point of view but they act as if they were real people like you and me, only that they're actors and currently rehearsing a play called "Une pièce espagnole". On this layer, we only get short monologues from these actors in which they reflect on their roles and what acting means to them.
2) The second layer is the so-called "Une pièce espagnole". The five actors take the roles of Pilar, her fiancé Fernan, her daughters Nuria and Aurelia, and Aurelia's husband Mariano. At its core, the play is about a family reunion where the mother wants her daughters and her fiancé to finally get acquainted with one another. The play shows multiple scenes from their lives, all centering around love and relationships, and the apparent tension within this family. What's funny (or even more complicated, depending on how you look at it) is the fact that the three women (so the characters!) also have jobs as actresses, e.g. Nuria is a well-known film actress and Aurelia is a lesser-known theatre actress. So their musings about art and theatre and what success versus failure means in that context oftentimes mirror the musings from the "real" actors from layer one.
3) The third layer is the play within the play within the play. Brace yourself. Since Aurelia is also an actress, within the "pièce espagnole" we also get some scenes where she is rehearsing a fictional Bulgarian play with her husband Mariano. This third layer shows the story of a piano teacher and her older student and how they fall in love.
Well, I hope you don't have a headache know. The fact that all these three layers are constantly alternating within the play doesn't make it easier to understand, as you can imagine.
For me, the downfall of the play lay in the fact that I didn't quite get its purpose. Sure, it's nice to have some reflections on art and theatre but I found that there was nothing substantial in this play. No grander scheme. No lessons. Nothing of interest. It's a play that people working in the scene might find hilarious because it forces them to look in a mirror but most of these musings were very superficial and unoriginal, like an actress exclaiming: "I don't wear anything around my neck, I can't play with a frill!"
For Reza, life and theatre are closely connected: "Not because real life is shown on stage, but because real life includes a large portion of play and theatre includes a large portion of reality." And I totally agree and usually, Reza manages to capture exactly that. But, unfortunately, not in Une pièce espagnole. The play is empty. Empty of life, and empty of reality.
Like I hinted before, the reason why I hold Yasmina Reza in such high regard is her ability to write about the human condition. Her plays, even though often exaggerated in their dialogues, capture the reality of what it is to be human so well. She is so witty. And her humour usually lands with me. What she does best, in my humble opinion, is write scenes with tension. Her fight scenes and when characters are screaming at one another, often under the influence of alcohol, are always a delight to read.
In Une pièce espagnole, however, there was only one such scene. In the scene, Nuria criticises her sister Aurelia because Aurelia got her daughter a play vacuum cleaner for her birthday. Nuria thinks it's weird that a 3-year-old asked for that gift and she finds it even weirder that Lola (Aurelia's daughter) finds so much joy in vacuum cleaning their house. Aurelia tries to defend her daughter, but her husband only jokes that they had to get rid of the cleaning lady, and also her mother thinks that she's overreacting. It's such a great sense that truly made me laugh aloud. It shows the dynamics within the family so well, as there's always this underlying tension of jealousy between the sisters, as Nuria is pretty successful in her job, and Aurelia fears that she's only seen as a "petite-bourgeoise" by her family.
There are other scenes during which Reza tried to build tension but they didn't land for me. The tension between the mother and her daughters, which boils down to the mother feeling excluded and worthless all the time (Pilar: "You sacrifice most of your life to them, and one day you are no longer a person, but really no longer a person.") and the daughters being embarrassed of their hysterical mother, didn't do anything for me. All the characters were so annoying and downright nasty to one another.
There was also tension about the third sister, who isn't physically present in the play, as the mother learns that she is pregnant and has a lover. Again, I didn't get the purpose of this subplot and therefore, Crystal (the third sister) remained flat and wasn't of interest to me.
In life too, it is not easy to let things come to you without defending yourself in advance against a misstep.Reza packs a bit much into the play, so that it seems overloaded at times. It's also incredibly slow-going as the reader doesn't really know what its purpose or goal is. The ending, therefore, is oddly unsatisfying as one feels that nothing has been achieved. Overall, not a play I would recommend.
July 4, 2015
ایده ی هیجان انگیزی داره اما دیالوگ ها به اندازه ی کارای دیگه ای یاسمینا رضا جذاب نیستن
" شما باید بتونین شخصیت های نمایشتونو بکُشین
قبل از اینکه خودشون و تکه تکه کنن،
عین آدم های واقعی که کارشون با رقّت تموم میشه
هر کدوم توی کنج خودشون
با یه گلوله می میرن
با رویا های احمقانه تو کله شون
رها شده تو جاده
عین لباسای روی طناب رخت
رویاهای آشغالی
و آخرش دیگه هیچ رویای در کار نیست
اگه شما از حق زندگی و مرگتون استفاده نکنین، طولی نمی کشه که اونو از دست میدین
شما برای جلب ترحم دیگران، همه چی رو از دست می دین "
" شما باید بتونین شخصیت های نمایشتونو بکُشین
قبل از اینکه خودشون و تکه تکه کنن،
عین آدم های واقعی که کارشون با رقّت تموم میشه
هر کدوم توی کنج خودشون
با یه گلوله می میرن
با رویا های احمقانه تو کله شون
رها شده تو جاده
عین لباسای روی طناب رخت
رویاهای آشغالی
و آخرش دیگه هیچ رویای در کار نیست
اگه شما از حق زندگی و مرگتون استفاده نکنین، طولی نمی کشه که اونو از دست میدین
شما برای جلب ترحم دیگران، همه چی رو از دست می دین "
February 13, 2015
"وختی من دوره های تیاتر رو میگذروندم ب ما میگفتن
تودسیبی،تو بادی،تو خنده ای،
خیلی وخ پیش بود،
من از خودم سوال نمیکردم.
گاهی صندلی بودم،گاهی آب،گاهی پشه،گاهی قرمز بودم،گاهی زرد
نزدیک،
دور،
میتونستم کاری کنم ک باشی
یا نباشی
میتونستم هیچی رو دوست نداشته باشم و نقش خشکسالی رو تو دنیا بازی کنم...
این جمله تو یکی از نامه های چخوف اه ب الگا کنیپر:
تو ب طرز غیرقابل تحملی سردی،
همونجوری ک ی بازیگر زن باید باشه."
تودسیبی،تو بادی،تو خنده ای،
خیلی وخ پیش بود،
من از خودم سوال نمیکردم.
گاهی صندلی بودم،گاهی آب،گاهی پشه،گاهی قرمز بودم،گاهی زرد
نزدیک،
دور،
میتونستم کاری کنم ک باشی
یا نباشی
میتونستم هیچی رو دوست نداشته باشم و نقش خشکسالی رو تو دنیا بازی کنم...
این جمله تو یکی از نامه های چخوف اه ب الگا کنیپر:
تو ب طرز غیرقابل تحملی سردی،
همونجوری ک ی بازیگر زن باید باشه."
December 15, 2017
من همیشه کارای یاسمینا رضا رو دوست داشتم، اما این نمایشنامه پیچیدهتر و سختفهمتر از بقیه به نظر میرسه. شخصیتها جالب و گاها بامزه هستن ولی نمیفهمیدم داستان اصلی و مقصود نویسنده چیه. مخصوصا اینکه نمایش چندلایهست و ما یه سری دیالوگ از نمایش داریم و یه سری دیالوگ از خود بازیگرا(که با تیتر مصاحبه خیالی مشخص شده). جوری که وقتی تموم شد باز از اول شروع کردم بخونم ببینم چی به چیه.
توصیف خونواده نمایش اسپانیایی و درگیری شخصیتها خیلی جالب بود، ولی بخش حرفای خود بازیگرا رو نمیفهمیدم زیاد. مدام هم فکر میکردم اجرای این اثر باید سخت باشه چون مدام فضا عوض میشه و دیالوگها باید تند تند گفته بشن.
توصیف خونواده نمایش اسپانیایی و درگیری شخصیتها خیلی جالب بود، ولی بخش حرفای خود بازیگرا رو نمیفهمیدم زیاد. مدام هم فکر میکردم اجرای این اثر باید سخت باشه چون مدام فضا عوض میشه و دیالوگها باید تند تند گفته بشن.
August 9, 2019
وقتى شروع كردم به خوندن اولين صفحه ى كتاب، به خودم گفتم يعنى چجورى تموم ميشه داستان!
وقتى به پايان رسيدم ديدم تازه شروع شده داستان.
يه مقدار پيچدست داستان
قطعا شما هم مثل من از مصاحبه هاى خيالى(تك گويى ها) بيشتر خوشتون اومده.
وقتى داستان رو ميخونى ميفهمى كه اكثرا از نقش هاشون ناراضى ان و دوسدارن نقش هاى ديگه اى كه بيشتر به شخصيت خودشون نزديكه رو بازى كنن.
١٨/مرداد/١٣٩٨
وقتى به پايان رسيدم ديدم تازه شروع شده داستان.
يه مقدار پيچدست داستان
قطعا شما هم مثل من از مصاحبه هاى خيالى(تك گويى ها) بيشتر خوشتون اومده.
وقتى داستان رو ميخونى ميفهمى كه اكثرا از نقش هاشون ناراضى ان و دوسدارن نقش هاى ديگه اى كه بيشتر به شخصيت خودشون نزديكه رو بازى كنن.
١٨/مرداد/١٣٩٨
March 29, 2021
Bon, définitivement, je suis passée à côté de ce théâtre imbriqué dans du théâtre imbriqué dans du théâtre...
C'est l'histoire d'acteurs qui répètent une pièce espagnole, dans laquelle une mère présente à ses deux filles et à l'époux de l'une son nouveau compagnon, Fernan. Les deux filles sont elles-mêmes actrices, une nouvelle vedette du cinéma, l'autre qui répète une pièce bulgare.
Évidemment, la pièce espagnole part en conflit familial alors que les trois femmes semblent incapables de ne pas tout tourner au (mélo)drame.
Elle n'est pas dénuée de tout intérêt. Par ex, j'aime assez le brouillard des frontières entre les différents niveaux de jeux et de réalité. Où on finit pat ne plus savoir si le théâtre est une mise en abîme de la réalité, ou l'inverse. C'est un peu meta, ça brouille les pistes.
Et je suppute que le voir sur scène doit être un avantage, car je reste relativement hermétique au texte dont je n'entrevois que superficiellement une partie de ses propos.
Mais je l'ai clairement moins apprécié qu'Art ou encore Trois versions de la vie. Tant dans l'écriture que ce que cela raconte.
A priori, mon prochain essai sera Les dieux du carnage.
C'est l'histoire d'acteurs qui répètent une pièce espagnole, dans laquelle une mère présente à ses deux filles et à l'époux de l'une son nouveau compagnon, Fernan. Les deux filles sont elles-mêmes actrices, une nouvelle vedette du cinéma, l'autre qui répète une pièce bulgare.
Évidemment, la pièce espagnole part en conflit familial alors que les trois femmes semblent incapables de ne pas tout tourner au (mélo)drame.
Elle n'est pas dénuée de tout intérêt. Par ex, j'aime assez le brouillard des frontières entre les différents niveaux de jeux et de réalité. Où on finit pat ne plus savoir si le théâtre est une mise en abîme de la réalité, ou l'inverse. C'est un peu meta, ça brouille les pistes.
Et je suppute que le voir sur scène doit être un avantage, car je reste relativement hermétique au texte dont je n'entrevois que superficiellement une partie de ses propos.
Mais je l'ai clairement moins apprécié qu'Art ou encore Trois versions de la vie. Tant dans l'écriture que ce que cela raconte.
A priori, mon prochain essai sera Les dieux du carnage.
November 27, 2014
من اينو(آهنگو) همون طوري كه براتون توضيح دادم مي زنم،
بي هيچ حرفي،
بدون هيچ تخيلي،
بلند مي شين،
بر مي گردين،
و
به من نگاه مي كنين.
بي هيچ حرفي،
بدون هيچ تخيلي،
بلند مي شين،
بر مي گردين،
و
به من نگاه مي كنين.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews