Sir Tom Stoppard is accused in some quarters of writing for the head and not the heart. In the partly autobiographical The Real Thing, he undeniably appeals to both in masterly fashion. Acclaimed at its 1982 London premiere, it arrived on Broadway to similar honors, winning Tonys in 1984 for best play, director, and three cast members (Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Christine Baranski). In this tragicomedy, Stoppard is exploring love, marriage, adultery, betrayal, jealousy and pain.
Playwright Henry (Stephen Dillane) has an actress-wife Charlotte (Sarah Woodward), but the bond is tenuous because Henry has taken up with actress Annie (Jennifer Ehle), whose husband Max (Nigel Lindsay) is an actor in Henry's latest play. It is only when this "real" situation becomes clear that we realize that an earlier scene about infidelity is fictional. On the sly, Annie later forms an attachment with Billy (Mark Bazeley), a young actor with whom she plans to share the stage. The play also deals with the art of writing, especially the relative importance of craft and content, when Annie asks Henry to rewrite a sincerely but incompetently written play by her friend Brodie (Joshua Henderson), who has been arrested for protesting the Bomb by desecrating a public monument. There is more than one way to portray Henry. Jeremy Irons felt the need to be rather actorish in order to fill his large stage. Here, in the intimate 250-seat Donmar Warehouse, Dillane can afford to be more restrained and natural without shortchanging his intelligence and deep feelings. As Annie, the 29-year-old Jennifer Ehle is a revelation. Throughout she is subtle and luminous, with an amazing gift for teetering between smiles and tears (she must be a source of unbounded pride to her mother, the redoubtable actress Rosemary Harris).
Woodward is properly cool as Charlotte, and the supporting players are exemplary. In the second act, Henry asserts that words are sacred: "If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." That's what Stoppard has done here (and elsewhere). The play and Deveaux's production are the real thing.
