The Real Thing
Donmar Warehouse
Rating ****
by Michael Billington
Who is Tom Stoppard? Our perception of him as a faintly heartless intellectual gymnast largely derives from the initial productions of his work. But David Leveaux's brilliant revival of this 1982 play taps into the genuine core of feeling in his work: Stoppard is really a romantic who uses cerebration as a shield against emotional excess.
The beauty of this play is that it combines structural intricacy with pain and passion. Its hero, Henry, is a sardonically clever dramatist, who adulterously falls for an actress, Annie, and marries her. She then deceives him with a young actor during a gig in Glasgow. But whereas in the kind of adultery-comedy Henry writes people camouflage their emotional wounds with smart remarks, in life they are pole-axed by grief. Among many other things, the play offers a sentimental education in which Henry learns the gift of inarticulacy.
But, this being Stoppard, there is a philosophical core to the excavation of pain. What, it constantly asks, is the real thing? Is it married love or a random affair? Is it high or low art of the kind Henry cherishes with his passion for Neil Sedaka and The Supremes? And is literary grace and style more real than an ill written tirade against injustice?
Only in this last area does Stoppard load the dice. Annie takes up the cause of Brodie, a convicted soldier who has committed arson at the Centotaph and who has written a rotten play on the subject. But Stoppard erects a false antithesis between style and content between Henry's linguistic skill and Brodie's unlettered passion. By his use of extreme examples, Stoppard dubiously implies that fierce convictions exclude literary finesse.
But the skill of Leveaux's production lies in the way it constantly challenges Henry. As played by Stephen Dillane he comes across initially as a somewhat supercilious smart-arse who has a phrase for every occasion. Much of the dynamism derives from the breakdown of Henry's defences and his acceptance of the idea that love involves humility and acceptance of other people's fallibility.
Jennifer Ehle is also excellent as Annie: she has an extraordinary gift for constantly appearing on the verge of tears yet she retaliates against Henry's suave put-downs with spirit and dignity. Sarah Woodward is cunningly cast as Henry's ex-wife.
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