The Real Thing

I do envy you being married to a man with a sense of humour. Henry thinks he has a sense of humour, but what he has is a joke reflex.

The play begins with Max and Charlotte, a couple whose marriage seems about to rupture. But nothing one sees on a stage is the real thing, and some things are less real than others. 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?

The Real Thing premiered at the Strand Theatre, London, in 1982, winning the Evening Standard Award for Best Play. It received the Tony Award for Best Play in 1984, and, in 2000, the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.

''What is this thing called love? In The Real Thing, we watch Henry find the answer - and we watch Mr. Stoppard do so too. The author of such high-flying neo-Shavian farces as Jumpers and Travesties turns his attention to private passion - and he does so without mortgaging an intellect that has few equals in the contemporary theater. The Real Thing is not only Mr. Stoppard''s most moving play, but also the most bracing play that anyone has written about love and marriage in years . . . so densely and entertainingly packed with wit, ideas and feelings that one visit just won''t do.'' FRANK RICH, NEW YORK TIMES