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About
The Real Thing is one of Tom Stoppard's most enduring and highly acclaimed dramatic works, first performed in 1982 at The Strand Theatre in London, starring Felicity Kendal and Roger Rees. The Real Thing begins with Max and Charlotte, a couple whose marriage is on the verge of collapse. Charlotte is an actress who has been appearing in a play about marriage written by her husband, Henry. Max, her leading man, is also married to an actress, Annie. Both marriages are at the point of rupture because Henry and Annie have fallen in love. But is it the real thing? Tom Stoppard combines his characteristically brilliant wordplay and wit with flashes of insight that illuminate the nature-and the mystery-of love, creating a multi-toned play that challenges the mind while searching out the innermost secrets of the heart. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, The Real Thing is brilliant and heartfelt, an extraordinary theatrical exploration of marriage, fidelity, and the creative life.
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Reviews
"In The Real Thing . . . [Stoppard] turns his attention to private passion-and he does so without mortgaging an intellect that has few equals in the contemporary theater . . . Not only Mr. Stoppard's most moving play, but also the most bracing plays that anyone has written about love and marriage in years . . . Densely and entertainingly packed with wit, ideas and feelings."
Frank Rich, New York Times
"A play of ideas, passionately held and eloquently written from start to finish . . . The Real Thing is the real thing, a play by a world-class writer, a play with insights that follow you out of the theater and deep into the night."
Los Angeles Times
"Exquisite . . . Stoppard brings head and heart, life and art together in an exhilarating way . . . The Real Thing moves with a restless energy, bouncing forward two years and complicating the action with new lovers and new plays. Stoppard works it all into a play that is at once tightly structured and expansive."
San Francisco Chronicle