To better understand the science in “Life X 3,” director Amy Glazer turned to an expert: her 10-year-old son.
“It was chaos theory for dummies,” Glazer says, laughing. “He thinks I was raised by wolves.”
Chaos theory indeed looms large in “Life X 3.” The French stage comedy (translated by Christopher Hampton) is now running at Marin Theatre Company in a production directed by Glazer who, like the playwright, is Jewish.
Written by Yasmina Reza, the Paris-based playwright responsible for the Tony-winning “Art,” “Life X 3” is a thrice-told tale, whereby subtle shifts in manner, emphasis, staging and subtext result in three very different outcomes.
The story is about a married couple mistakenly showing up for a dinner party at the home of another couple on the wrong night. The four wrangle about professional jealousies and secret flirtations before the lights fade to black. Then, the same scene is played out twice more, but slightly altered each time.
“That’s what makes social interaction so compelling,” says Glazer. “By changing slightly the circumstances, the course of one’s life can be changed.”
The play contains no overt Jewish characters or themes, but Glazer says she intuits an underlying Jewish sensibility in the text. “I understood the machinations of these characters in a very instinctive way,” she says, “even though there’s nothing Jewish about them. The circuitous manner of their behavior as a means of getting what they want is very smart and very Jewish.”
Glazer first saw the play in London four years ago, and was so captivated she determined then to direct it someday. When colleagues at the Marin Theater Company asked her to suggest possible shows for production, “Life X 3” was her first choice.
“There is something very smart about this writer,” she says of Reza, “and something very haunting and human about the play, something beyond what appears on the surface. I just knew it would compel me. There was something delicious about the challenge.”
Part of that challenge was creating a set that conveyed the capriciousness of life. Glazer built an imposing set with rounded walls and high glass windows to mimic a large Paris apartment. “I wanted something cold,” she says. “It’s about people lost on the treadmill of their lives.”
Because the two male characters are astrophysicists, the concept of chaos theory — the whole butterfly in Brazil causing a tornado in Texas thing — enters into the plot. Glazer hadn’t previously known much about the complex science, so to prepare, she undertook a crash course, which included input from her precocious son.
“Being a director keeps me from being an idiot,” she says. “There’s always something I have to learn.”
No one would mistake Glazer for a fool. A self-proclaimed “red diaper baby” (her parents were atheist Jewish socialists), Glazer grew up dividing her time between Manhattan and Miami. She came to California in the early 1980s to pursue her theater career.
Today, the Oakland resident is one of the Bay Area’s most accomplished stage directors, having helmed numerous productions for the Magic Theater, Marin Theatre Company and others. She is also a professor of theater arts at San Jose State University.
“I give my students real-life experience,” says Glazer. “They see my work, I bring in my models and designs, I bring in people I work with. My being a theater director is a rich resource for them.”
As for her Jewish life, though she says she is still not religious, she wholeheartedly embraces Jewish cultural traditions and is a member of Oakland’s Temple Sinai.
“I feel very identified as a Jewish woman,” she adds. “When I give line readings to actors they laugh and say I always have a Yiddish inflection. [“Life X 3″] is not Jewish in any recognizable way, but certainly the humor, the irony is informed with a Yiddishkeit sensibility.”
With opening night of “Life X 3” having come and gone, Glazer is already on to her next project. She’s putting together a film version of a Stephen Belber play she previously directed for the stage. That, plus teaching and motherhood, keep Glazer more than busy.
But she says the multitasking life makes her a better director. Besides, she gets plenty of assistance from family and friends, and they don’t go unrewarded. Says Glazer: “I give friends who help me opening-night tickets.”
“Life X 3” is ongoing Tuesday through Sunday, Dec. 12, times vary, at Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets: $28-$46. Information: (415) 388-5208.