The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard that was first performed in 1982. The play focuses on the relationship between Henry and Annie, an actress and member of a group fighting to free Brodie, a Scottish soldier imprisoned for burning a memorial wreath during a protest.
The Real Thing examines the nature of honesty and uses various constructs, including a play within a play, to explore the theme of reality versus appearance. It has been described as one of Stoppard's "most popular, enduring and autobiographical plays."
Characters
Max: "40-ish" male actor who begins the play married to Annie. Acts in Henry's new play, House of Cards.
Charlotte: "35-ish" actress who begins the play married to Henry. Appears opposite Max in House of Cards.
Henry: "40-ish" playwright who, at the beginning of the play, is married to Charlotte and conducting an affair with Annie. Both believe in love and yet approach it with cynicism.
Annie: "30-ish" actress who begins the play married to Max. She has been conducting an ongoing affair with Henry while also working as an activist for Brodie, a soldier who was arrested and imprisoned for setting fire to a wreath at the Cenotaph.
Billy: "22-ish" young actor who plays Giovanni to Annie's Annabella in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. Openly shows romantic interest in Annie.
Debbie: "17" year old daughter of Charlotte and Henry who nevertheless spends very little time with them.
Brodie: "25" year old soldier imprisoned for setting fire to the wreath at the Cenotaph. Annie takes him up as a cause.
Synopsis
Setting: London in 1982
Act I
In the first scene, Max accuses his distant and travelling wife, Charlotte, of adultery. Upset, she leaves.
In the second scene, Charlotte's personality appears to have changed and she is now married to a playwright named Henry. The audience is gradually led to realize that Charlotte is an actress, and the first scene was her performance in a play that Henry, her husband, wrote. In the play, the character of Max is played by the husband of a married couple with whom Henry and Charlotte are friends, also named Max. The scene reveals that Charlotte is unhappy with the play. She believes that Henry gives limited development to the female lead in order to show off his wit through the male lead's lines.
Max and his wife Annie drop by for a social visit with Charlotte and Henry. Without the benefit of Henry's dialogue, the real-life Max seems superficial. By contrast, his wife Annie is, according to the script, "very much like the woman Charlotte has ceased to be." Annie is a devoted activist on behalf of an imprisoned soldier, Brodie, who has been arrested for setting fire to the wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Henry mocks her as a sentimental do-gooder, giving offense to Max. But when Annie and Henry are left alone, the scene reveals that their fight was also a performance: they are having an affair, and she agrees to meet him later on the pretext of visiting Brodie in prison.
Max discovers the affair, and Annie leaves him to be with Henry. Soon, Henry is reduced to writing television scripts in order to pay alimony to Charlotte. He struggles to write a play about his love for Annie, but finds it difficult to find the right language to express sincere emotion: he can vocalize his feelings but has difficulty expressing them honestly in writing.
Act II
Two years later, Henry's play about Annie remains unwritten. Annie asks him to ghost-write a play by the prisoner Brodie, whom she continues to visit. Brodie's anarchist politics, anti-intellectualism, and lack of writing ability are the antithesis of everything Henry values. Annie discounts Henry's distaste and states that what matters is the passion behind the writing. Henry defends the importance of beauty in language and skill in writing using an analogy with a cricket bat: good writing is like hitting a ball with a cricket bat (i.e. something that has been carefully designed and crafted to hit balls in the best manner possible); bad writing is like hitting it with a plank of wood (i.e., something that has the same composition as a cricket bat, and bears it some resemblance, but is ultimately random and inferior). Henry accuses Annie of being attracted to Brodie, and instantly realizes his mistake.