The Real Thing - Old Vic

Saw it last night. My primary gripe is that the writing tries to be clever for its own sake, and ironically, obscures the actual payoff of intellectualising some fairly banal ideas. For a play ostensibly about human interaction, you're not led to really *care* about any of it; witty insights and inventive dialogue can only do so much. And even if this is intentionally emblematic of the central theme -- the discord between performativity and "the real thing" -- the experience becomes more of an academic exercise than an enjoyable work of theatre.

I haven't seen the play staged, I've only read it but this exactly what I thought of it! 
James McArdle is always a draw, a fantastic actor, but I''ll probably give this a miss since it doesn't fit in terms of dates into the upcoming trip anyway.. 

Director Max Webster clearly wants us to know we are watching a play. The set emphasises the acting space with an illuminated surround at both ground and ceiling level, and at one point the very visible stagehands even join the main character in a dance!

The author of the play, Tom Stoppard, has written a play about a playwright, himself, and about his own affair with an actress. The first scene within that play is a scene from the playwright’s play about an infidelity. And so we have three levels of narrative about affairs to consider! The ‘Russian Doll’ situation is never far from our thoughts and neither is the theatrical artifice of the whole show. And a show it is – a show-off of Stoppard’s wit at expressing himself and exercising his thoughts on love, (in)fidelity, and…er…himself. Some shy away from his spectacular self-exposure and, I must admit, this frequent promotion of his intellect is often a problem I have with some of Stoppard’s other plays. But not here. Oh no, at this one I smile at the conceit of it all, I laugh at the jokes so astute, surprising and characterful. And I care about those people on stage going through their carefully contrived performance, baring their souls, to achieve before our very eyes, the real thing.

That first scene from the-play-within-a-play is just slightly actorly, catches our attention but we know we are watching from a distance. We are then gradually drawn in to the life of the playwright (maybe Stoppard’s, but essentially that of the in-play author Henry). His life is falling apart with pangs of love, and who knows when and where it will settle? His affair is the catalyst but, as we progress through the complex relationship tangle, we can see real feelings develop. There are tears, but by the end those central players have achieved a real bond.

James McArdle commands the stage as Henry, meeting all the demands of Stoppard’s wordy script with a satisfying flourish. Henry’s second partner Annie is played by Bel Powley, and I was expecting a problem here. She has proved herself adept at teenage roles on tv, but here she matures as we watch, giving a robust counterbalance to McArdle’s Henry. There are also Susan Wokoma and Oliver Johnstone as Max and Charlotte, the ex-partners of Henry and Annie, balancing the foursome while still hinting at reasons for rejection. I also want to mention Rilwan Abiola Owokoniran who pops up briefly to charm Annie (and us) with his seductive smile.

At our matinee performance, I wondered if the audience was asleep, so meagre was any sense of a response. After the interval they awoke! It’s a theatre classic. Our attention brings its reward. And rewarding it certainly was.

Saw this at the weekend. Really enjoyed it and thought James McArdle was really terrific.

Travesties with Tom Hollander was magnificent but even there I wondered if it was the script or what Marber, Hollander etc did with it that gets the credit.  The script/narrative must have some merit because I remember finding Marber's own Don Juan in Soho - which, if memory serves, was in the WE around the same time - much less impressive.  One problem with The Real Thing is that over the years the script has suffered from a fair bit of censorship tweaking.  Charlotte's line about 'two semi-stiff lower lips' was certainly missing from the last production I saw.  I suspect a lot of the revisions are done by Stoppard himself, but I resisted the temptation to see what the Old Vic made of this.  

I really enjoyed this. It's a play I know well and, having loved the Donmar production with Stephen Dillane and Jennifer Ehle 25 years ago, went in with a little trepidation, fearful that this couldn't live up to it. It isn't quite as good but it is extremely well done and James McArdle, new to me, is an excellent Henry. It is a very witty play with lots of great lines - most of which hit home (though there are always going to be occasions with Stoppard where you think, if you know the text well, why didn't you say it like that - you've missed the laugh?). But it is also very thoughtful, indeed profound, when talking about love, a subject that does not come up much in modern theatre. When Henry talks about the insularity of love, what it is to know another person and when he reveals his complacency about his relationship with Annie, the writing is first-rate, full of human insight.

Time, surely, for a major revival of Arcadia (the other play, singingbird, as good as Travesties - though very different)? I could see McArdle as Bernard Nightingale.