Few plays make you ponder the laws of thermodynamics, but then again, “Life X3 (Les Trois Versions de la Vie)” by Yasmina Reza, with its scrolling images of galaxies and nebulas projected upon the walls, does seem a tad otherworldly.
“Life X3” is a play in three acts, each one revisiting the same material but in slightly different ways ? like in three parallel universes. The story revolves around Henry (Vic Cheswick), a down-on-his-luck scientist and sometimes bipolar (sometimes not, it depends on the act) who wants to curry favor with an esteemed colleague, the pretentious in name and in manner Hubert Finnedori (Mike Ware) and their respective wives, Sonia (Shannon Miller) and Inez (Adele Russell).
Reza, a Parisian playwright, has a reputation for cleverly depicting people?s furies and frailties, and many are on display here, as couples squabble over issues as minute as stocking runs and Cheez-Its and as vast as “the flatness of galaxy halos” and one man?s personal doom.
The dialogue sparkles and bites, with lines that make the audience think: “Never ask a favor of someone who does nothing ? they never have the time”; “When a woman says a man is arrogant, she means attractive”; and how “a seemingly empty moment” like walking by a river “can engulf your whole being.”
Each actor?s character changes slightly from scene to scene; while Henry is so obsequious in the first act that he implores, “Do I crawl?” while half bent over, he shows more backbone in the third act, refusing to panic when he learns his work of three years has been trumped by a competitor.
Sonia and Inez play a brittle harpy and a scatter-brained lush with varying softness and hardness of tones in each scene, while Hubert?s pedantic, arrogant uber-intellect maintains its resonance throughout. Perhaps the lesson here is that some people never change no matter the universe in which they exist.
But back to thermodynamics, the second law of which concerns entropy, the chaos within a closed system, like the universe ? or a relationship. There?s a big bang, the universe explodes into its near infinite expanse, and then it slowly closes back upon itself again, where the whole cycle will begin again. And in this play, there?s a big bang, a man faces career suicide, a woman contemplates adultery and all collapses to begin again in the next act, as an unseen child, Sonia and Henry?s Arnaud (Peggy Friedman), wails offstage, perhaps for chocolate fingers, for hugs or as a metaphor for the absurd tale of woe that is these people?s lives.
IF YOU GO
“Life X3”
» Venue: The Fells Point Corner Theater, 251 S. Ann St., Fells Point, Baltimore
» Times: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
» Tickets: $15; $12 for seniors and students
» Info: 410-276-8737, fpct.org
