Life x 3
Director: Adam Cook
State Theatre
Tues 15 Aug
Until 2 September


Contemporary French author and playwright Yasmina Reza has a reputation for crafting seemingly banal conversation in a way that has us reflect upon our own social interactions. In last year's excellent production of 'The Unexpected Man' Reza shared the anxious thoughts of a doubt-ridden author and his unconfident fan during a chance encounter on a train journey. She made her reputation in 1994 with 'Art,' in which three friends have a falling out over strong views of a painting.

In 'Life x 3' Reza utilises the device of replaying a scene with variations. The first run-through is a near farcical triumph. Designer Dean Hills' furniture signifies an apartment of taste and accomplishment: Parisians Sonia (Caroline Mignon) and Henri (Geoff Revell) are having a tetchy time putting their kid to sleep when the dinner guests ring a day early. Oh-oh.

Henri, already stressed by his uncooperative wife and braying child, had planned on making a good impression on his clever mentor and superior, Hubert (William Zappa), who is accompanied by his wife played by Carmel Johnson. Cruelly, Hubert blithely announces that Henri's research on astrophysical phenomenon has been pipped at the post by other authors. The ill wind of the failed dinner party is whipped up into a tempest of perfidious repartee and all subjects degenerate to insults. That was the fun part of the play.

The following two replays each start later into the action and consequently less baggage is brought to the situation, and characterisations are subtly altered to express Reza's theme. In the second go-round, Hubert and Sonia begin in a finer domestic mood that eases the initial situation, yet Hubert descends into an abyssal funk on Henri's news. The middle scene is a transition to the third, which begins later in the evening. In this final scene Hubert, instead of being a raging mess or depressive fatalist, is a man of action in investigating the threat of the other paper. Caroline Mignon vividly expresses Sonia's compassion in bringing Henri out of a moody moment to congratulate his mentor's good fortune. Hubert recognises a man of character and promises to put in a good word for Henri, yet how this relates to a potential affair between Sonia and Henri is anybody's guess.

As an actor, it's a real challenge keeping your tits on straight when doing similar scenes like with different takes on the same character. William Zappa was every inch the unctuous professor while Carmel Johnson balanced servility and dignity. But it was Geoff Revell's rollercoaster to ride which he did without hands. Reza's opening stage instructions and the men's astrophysical business was taken into account for the set design, but what were supposed to be heavenly orbs resembled giant balls of orange yarn - I feared a large puddy tat would come out during the scene changes and paw them around. Composer Stuart Day borrowed from some bad '50s sci-fi and what was supposed to be whimsical was just plain weird.

Yasmina Reza's 'Life x 3' is reminiscent of Michael Frayn's 'Copenhagen' in which the minds of men collide with the atomic energy of attraction and repellence. I quickly identified with many of the difficulties Reza's characters found themselves in, and I applaud her thematic construction, but I wasn't emotional hooked on this lesson in communication.

David Grybowski