The Subtext of The Real Thing: It's "all right"

The Subtext of The Real Thing: It's "all right" LESLIE THOMSO N In The Real Thing, Tom Stoppard focuses on language: on what it can and cannot do, both in the theatre and in real life. While he demonstrates the importance and value of words as representations of "real things," he also examines the limitations of language and the possibilities for its misuse. He is particularly concerned with the difficulty of finding words adequate to express ideas or emotions - especially love - "things" that are not "real" the way a coffee mug is real. Henry, the wordsmith of the play, describes one aspect of the problem: ... there is something real here which is always a mug with a handle. I suppose. But politics. justice, patriotism - they aren't even like coffee mugs. There's nothing real there separate from our perception of them. ... If you know this and proceed with humility, you may perhaps alter people's perceptions so that they behave a little differently at that ax.is of behaviour where we locate politics or justice; but if youdon'{ know this, then you're acting on a mistake. Prejudice is the expression of this mistake.] And Annie's reply, "or such is your perception," suggests the complexity ofthe issue. The problem of relating subjective perceptions to objective realities determines both the form and the content of The Real Thing - a cliched phrase that not only deftly conveys the certainty of lovers but, more importantly, captures the difficulty of expressing the feeling, the emotion of love, both in real life and in the theatre. The play's combination of verbal, visual, and structural devices can be seen as an acknowledgement of the problem and an attempt to find a solution. The structure juxtaposes several love relationships, some more real than others both theatrically and emotionally, while the language suggests an inverse relationship between real and artificial love: the more real, the less articulate. The repetition with variation of words and LESLIE THOMSON situations invites us to make comparisons and perceive ironies. Together these devices prompt us to consider what constitutes "the real thing" and why we recognize it as such both in life and in the theatre; they also dramatize the growth of a love that is real: not perfect, but fallible, painful, and thus, recognizably human. But to this view someone might reply, "or such is your perception." Certainly two quite different interpretations of Stoppard's intentions are offered in the most sensitive studies of the play to date, those by Hersh Zeifman and Paul Delaney. Zeifman says that the play begins by posing two questions: "[Ils [Annie's and Henry'sl love 'the real thing'?" and, "What is the 'real thing' when it comes to love?" Inhis view, "[tlhe rest of the play attempts to answer these questions - or rather, as is typical of Stoppard's plays, it bounces the questions around in a kind of endless debate, with no single 'answer' shown to be indisputably right." Zeifman concludes: Dizzy from this series of comic ambushes of OUT perceptions and preconceptions, we thus find ourselves at the end invariably questioning, among a host of other "realities," the precise nature of love - as Stoppard, of course, intended. Love speaks in many different tongues, with many different accents. Which of them, finally, is "the real thing"?2 Delaney offers a response to Zeifman: "But the point, surely, is that we can recognize the real thing when it comes along." He continues: Such a view [Zeifman's] offers the sophisticated interpretation that while a Stoppard play might engage in elaborate theatre games, might recount the process of trying to define the real thing, it surely would not do anything quite so simplistic as to define the real thing, well at least- dear me - not in terms of the morality of sexual relationships.J Perhaps we should be directed by Stoppard himself. In an interview with Vogue, given when The Real Thing opened on Broadway, Stoppard indicates that he wanted to dramatize a "real" relationship. When the interviewer says that Annie and Henry "seem, throughout the second act, to be at the very edge of splitting apart," and asks "[ils the fragility...