Theatre in Review: The Real Thing (Roundabout Theatre Company/American Airlines Theatre)

Several reviews of the current revival of The Real Thing have suggested that Sam Gold's production manhandles a modern classic. I'd like to suggest an alternate version: It is a middling production of a play that may not be as brilliant as you remember it.

Not that The Real Thing lacks brilliance; it is positively dripping with it, displaying its wit and erudition at the slightest opportunity. But it is brilliance of a curiously self-defeating sort, as it is largely designed to distract us from a thesis that, ultimately, isn't all that interesting. In what may be his most commercially successful work, Tom Stoppard creates an elaborate narrative game, a dizzy fact-or-fiction sleight of hand, if only to point out that such artifice is empty, especially when juxtaposed against matters of the heart. To say that this is stating the obvious is, well, stating the obvious.

Thus we get three different variations on the same encounter -- a frightened, furious husband confronting his mysterious, possibly unfaithful wife -- in an excerpt from a play written by Henry, Stoppard's protagonist, and in two life-imitates-art repetitions. We hear the opening scene of a cliché-strewn political drama, first read out loud by the appalled Henry (who calls it "half as long as Das Kapital and only twice as funny"), then later used by an actor as a pick-up line, and still later, when the play is in production as a television film. We also see a scene from a certain Jacobean tragedy, which may also indicate that a real-life seduction is in the offing. All of this is entertaining -- Stoppard's wit is as sharp as ever, and it's fun trying to guess which emotions are real and which are mere playacting. But when the time comes for the author to display the cards he has held so closely to his chest, the effect is curiously flat. In case you hadn't heard, love is all you need.

Gold's production has many things going for it, not least of which is Ewan McGregor as Henry, who pens glib dramas of adultery and who, having abandoned his wife and daughter for the winsome Annie, begins to wonder if he hasn't been cast in the role of cuckolded lover himself. Stoppard has gifted the character with so many gilded speeches that he can easily become overbearing. When Annie, an actress, appears to fall for a younger leading man, you half-suspect that she's looking for the opportunity to get a word in edgewise. (As Charlotte, Henry's ex-wife, notes, "Henry thinks he has a sense of humor, but what he has is a joke reflex.") But McGregor manages to neutralize the character's more overbearing tendencies; his Henry is an ardent lover of words and women -- and is, surprisingly, naïve about both. McGregor makes him far more open to heartbreak -- and, therefore, more likable -- than any other actor I have seen in the role.

Equally fine is Maggie Gyllenhaal as Annie, who is as impulsive as Henry is cerebral, and who, at one point or another, has every man in the play on a string. You can see why; whether she is daring Henry to shatter both their marriages with the truth of their affair as soon as their respective spouses come back into the room, or staring pitilessly at a husband she no longer loves, or coolly taking in the attentions of an ardent younger man, she is a magnetic force, a full-fledged bewitcher of men.

Interestingly, in contrast to McGregor, most of Gyllenhaal's best moments are nonverbal, largely because Stoppard has given her relatively little of interest to say. Even when protesting her love, Annie is an enigmatic creature, necessarily so if the author's design is to be realized, and all of Gyllenhaal's considerable resources are needed because Stoppard too often patronizes his heroine. Much of the conflict between Henry and Annie comes from her devotion to Brodie, a soldier whom she befriended at an antinuclear demonstration, who was later jailed for burning a wreath at a war memorial. To Annie, this is a political act; to Henry, it is arson, committed by a publicity-seeking fool. Annie is determined to get Brodie's impossible, autobiographical play produced, and wants Henry to doctor it. This cues Henry's most famous speech, about how good writing, like a well-made cricket bat to ball, gives ideas a small, but necessary, nudge, pitching them into the world's consciousness. Annie is given no speech of a comparable quality. In other plays, Stoppard gives the best arguments to the contentious characters, taking delight in the free clash of ideas; here, Annie basically cues Henry's arias.

The argument about Brodie and his play creates a small, but discernible, wedge between Annie and Henry, and when Annie heads to Glasgow to do 'Tis Pity She's a Whore -- note that she isn't doing The Constant Wife -- her flirtation (or is it more?) with her co-star drives Henry to the edge, forcing him to come to terms with the unruly emotions that elude his slick way with words. But Stoppard does Annie no favors with the decision to reveal, at the eleventh hour, that Brodie is a self-regarding lout who doesn't give a hoot about politics. (Like all the other men in the play, he has been merely trying to impress Annie). The author even reverts to a bit of slapstick, having Annie, fed up with Brodie's bad manners, shoving a bowl of dip into his face, before falling into a happy clinch with Henry. This screwball comedy finale seems to have wandered in from another, altogether frothier, play.

If the deck seems stacked against Annie, it is also true that Henry's arguments, so glittering on the surface, have little substance. He eloquently defends fine writing and clarity of expression, but to what end is never made clear. It is surely no accident that every character in the play considers his most recent work -- the aptly named House of Cards -- to be an empty, trivial piece of writing, and, having left Charlotte for Annie, he mostly works as a screenwriter to pay the alimony bills. Annie's political commitments may be ill-considered, but she is also the only person in the play who cares about something other than herself. Written during a period of turmoil in the United Kingdom, The Real Thing, a play about the importance of clear thinking and precise expression, unfolds in an environment surprisingly lacking in ideas.

Gold's staging has a number of good moments: when Annie is shooting a scene from Brodie's film with her co-star and lover, just as the director yells, "Cut!" a bit of pantomime between the two actors tells you all you need to know about a cooling affair; or when Max, Annie's husband (nicely handled by Josh Hamilton), tries to take in the news that his marriage is over. But other decisions seem perverse, especially the notion that the cast should wander around the stage with a guitar, engaging in group sings of selected '60s pop hits. One of Henry's most discussed quirks is his devotion to the likes of The Ronettes and Procol Harum; there's no point at all in having the others join in. These sequences also have a way of draining energy from a production that already lacks a certain forward movement. Cynthia Nixon is ideally cast as Charlotte, Henry's acidulous ex-wife, but Kaye Voyce, the otherwise excellent costume designer, has seemingly set out to make her look as unflattering as possible. In her first scene, Nixon is dowdily coiffed and dressed in a way that made me think of Margaret Thatcher. Even worse, her big second-act scene takes places just after she has left the bath, so she is made to play with her wet hair flying in every possible direction. There she was, busily articulating one of the play's major arguments -- "There are no commitments, only bargains. And they have to be made again every day." -- and all I could think was, Yes, of course, but you do have a hairbrush, don't you?

There are two schools of thought regarding the correct way of staging The Real Thing -- Mike Nichols' approach, in 1984, with Tony Walton's whirligig of sets in a variety of styles, or David Leveaux's take, in 2000, with Vicki Mortimer's spare, skeletal, unit set approach. David Zinn's set design, a simply furnished room with bookshelves placed oddly out of reach -- is closer to the latter, but it lacks visual interest and doesn't well serve a play that features so many scenes set on theatre stages and in film studios. The set is interestingly reframed from scene to scene by Mark Barton, using large rectangular light washes, but the overall effect is slightly drab. Bray Poor's sound design makes good use of various Top of the Pops selections as well as bits of classical music and other necessary effects.

A great many people profess their love for The Real Thing, and, thanks to McGregor and Gyllenhaal, they should be guaranteed of getting their money's worth. And, scene by scene, the play is marked by Stoppard's trademark wit, which the cast handles with aplomb. But, taken as a whole, it's hard not to conclude that a tremendous amount of energy is spent on making a very simple point. In the end, this formally complex construction seems to be little more than a dramatic house of cards.--David Barbour