Tom Stoppard's gift with language has blessed fans with plays that explore the most difficult topics: chaos theory, Romantic poetry and the life of writer A.E. Houseman, to name just a few. The Real Thing, which won a Tony award for best play in 1984 under the direction of Mike Nichols and starred Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons, stands out in Stoppard's oeuvre for being simply about love and relationships.
The new production, arriving from an acclaimed run at London's Donmar Warehouse, opens on April 17 in New York and though technically a revival, it is the best new play on Broadway this season. Director David Leveaux takes this oldest of subjects - relationships -- and makes its artifice and arguments feel utterly contemporary.
As the story of a writer, Henry, and his wife, Annie, The Real Thing moves between scenes in British theatres and scenes in London bedrooms. Henry, like Stoppard, is a playwright who loves language and takes on difficult topics. He is aloof and absorbed in bad pop music. Annie, an actress, arrives in his life when her husband, Max, is cast opposite Charlotte, Henry's ex (also an actress), in an earlier play. So the central relationships follow a classic pattern: A meets B, A loves B, B meets C, B betrays A, et cetera.
The crux of the action is the love of Henry and Annie and their educated and desperate attempts to understand what it means for them. Alternatively erudite and distressed, and always eloquent and ironic, the two talk about theatre and politics and music, but mostly they talk about love, and writing. One of the best scenes in the play involves an argument over what it means to write well. Henry wins.
The cast, led by the virtuosic Stephen Dillane as Henry and the equally eloquent Jennifer Ehle as Annie, burns. The two are stunningly good-looking in that rare way: they seem intelligent, academic, and urbane without even opening their mouths. The dynamic between them is one of volatile and historic longing.
Henry and Annie meet in the second scene and immediately it's apparent that they will come together. While their spouses are off in the kitchen, they kiss and reveal they've been lovers for some time. From that moment the play speeds through a series of short scenes in which we see this love develop and evolve, eventually reaching resolution in the wake of the ultimate test: adultery.
The common assumption of all of these characters is that love is ephemeral. Only Henry is a stable centre and the one true Romantic. While first Charlotte, and later Annie, rail against their own failure to arouse Henry's jealousy by flirting with other men, we see how easily his trust is mistaken for indifference.
Thinking his absent-mindedness indicative of his own infidelity, both women leave him for other men. Finally, we see Henry open his eyes, confront the truth, and be shocked. Henry believes in commitment and hanging in for the long haul. He also believes that happiness is not an unrealistic goal.
Sexy without being decadent, Henry and Annie's eloquent, elegant arguments show how we seek in plays the neat symmetry we lack in life and love. These two make each other laugh just before they make each other cry. And always just underneath the surface of their cold rationalism there is a simple, and enviable adoration. Henry's final monologue is a plea to make Annie come home to him, and to reassure her that she is the only thing capable of preoccupying his thoughts.
For a play about actors and playwrights, Stoppard's point transcends the dramatic. Hang in there, he seems to say. Love is worth it.
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