The Real Thing, American Airlines Theatre, New York

I think I was a little dazzled while seeing this play, not by the big name draws in their Broadway debuts, or by the direction, but, not having seen any of Tom Stoppard’s plays previously, by his way with words.  While I still have nothing to compare it to, this revival of The Real Thing seems to be a good place to start with his work.  It is a complex look at the nature of honesty and reality, sharing jokes on the truth of theatre with the audience, while taking authenticity from the parallels between the central character Henry and Stoppard himself.  Has Stoppard had as much difficulty as Henry acting out in real life the emotional scenes of his plays, or is this a further layer of fiction rather than the ‘Real Thing’?

The play proper (as opposed to the opening musical number, of which more later) begins with a confrontation between a married couple, which transpires to be a play within a play, but which also foreshadows what lies ahead for our characters.  Ewen McGregor and Cynthia Nixon play husband and wife Henry and Charlotte, he the author of the opening scene, and she the confronted wife. Max (Josh Hamilton) plays Charlotte’s husband, and is married to Annie (Maggie Gyllenhaal).  The major part of the foreshadowed infidelity transpires to be between Henry and Annie, who have become the married couple by the second act.  Annie wants Henry to write her a play, and also work on a play written (terribly) by a soldier imprisoned for vandalism, while Henry expounds on the unique talent of the writer to put thought into words, and must decide on the nature of his love for Annie.  Is his love for here the ‘Real Thing’?  Is there even a ‘Real Thing’ to be found?  Such is the question posed by the play.

‘The Real Thing’ seems to have been universally well accepted in previous Broadway outings, with many awards and suchlike, but critics have almost universally found problems with this production, namely its lack of it immediacy and emotional connection.  There are certainly a few directorial choices which contribute to this.  I for one was confused at first when the cast broke into song as the play opens, and during set changes.  It may have been a reminder that, after all, these are actors reading lines rather than real people to connect to, but this loss of connection is detrimental to the production overall.  The set is also a little hard to read, with a somehow flattened perspective and the same furniture serving for different spaces.  Partial marks to the creative team, then.

And what about the actors?  McGregor and Gyllenhaal were both in their Broadway debuts in this play, and I thought acquitted themselves pretty well.  Again, though, I think this is where the dazzling writing comes in.  While I was watching it, I thoroughly enjoyed their acting.  It was only afterwards that I realised that it was a play about emotion, but where I hadn’t really emotionally connected to their performances, but maybe instead to phrases like “…half as long as Das Kapital and only twice as funny…”, or a conversation about ‘the tedium of the unrequiting’.  The same went for the rest of the cast: they had good material, but never quite made enough of it.  They didn’t work against the play to the same extent as the direction and design, however, so mostly good marks for them.

Overall, therefore, it was an evening which has instilled in me an interest seeing more of Stoppard’s work, has allowed me to see a number of new actors at work, but which could have been more memorable if everything had just been a bit more (dare I say it?) real.  With a bit more authenticity in the performances, and a bit less of the barriers of poor sets and breaks in character who knows – it could well have been possible for ‘The Real Thing’ to scoop up a few more awards this time around.  As it is, probably not, but I’m still glad I went.