For reasons, I have yet to be successful at seeing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead live. It seems that every time one of our local theaters have done it, I have had a concert week or planned vacation, and it has never worked out. So, that one is still on my list.
Oddly, the one Tom Stoppard play I have seen is a rather obscure one that few have heard of, and it also happens to be one that I have gotten to be a participant in. That one is Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, a collaboration with the late conductor and composer Andre Previn. I can assure you that the orchestra may be imaginary in the play, but it is very real on stage, and it was a real pleasure to be a part of that.
I thought I was going to have to miss out on my next chance to catch a live Tom Stoppard production, but it turned out that opening night for The Real Thing was on the day before I left on a summer camping trip, so I was able to see it after all.
It was a great experience, and I only wish I had been able to write about it before the show’s run finished. Oh well.
Ovation Underground is a new endeavor of Ovation Theatre, which primarily does musicals on its main stage, often with live band. You can find plenty of reviews of shows there on this blog. This was my first experience of Ovation Underground, which is in the basement of the main theater, in an intimate space with about 40 total seats.
Many of us local theater patrons were saddened when Stars Playhouse closed its doors, as it too had that intimate vibe and the ability to tackle plays that were perhaps less commercially sellable, and took risks. True, The Empty Space also does this with a few shows each year, there was a vacuum that I am glad to see filled by Ovation Underground. I am also glad to see that it has shows at a modest price, making a ticket a low-risk, high-reward proposition.
Before I talk about the show itself, I will get my one complaint out of the way. This is about the seats themselves. While I applaud the creative repurposing of old theater seats, the execution leaves a bit to be desired.
Specifically, the seats are meant to be mounted on a slope. Instead, they are mounted on flat risers, which means they tilt back a bit too much, and also cause problems for those of us “fun size” humans with short legs. (Full disclosure: 5’7”, 29” inseam) For me at least, this meant dangling feet and a difficulty in sitting up in more than one position. A bit uncomfortable, although not the worst I have ever had. (As a musician, I know just how horrid rental chairs can be - remember that string players need to move our arms, so do not provide us with armrests and chairs that lean back. It is agony to play in those.)
That said, that one complaint is literally the only negative thing I have to say about the show. The performance itself was excellent from start to finish, and a real treat to see up close and personal.
Stoppard’s plot is semi-autobiographical, although in a way, it was also life imitating art. There is a successful playwright, Henry (John Spitzer), with a failing marriage and a mistress who wants to go public. Henry is much like Stoppard in other ways: writing furiously for stage and television to pay his alimony, skeptical of Marxism, trying to maintain a relationship with his child, and (of course) witty and suave and sexy.
In real life, Stoppard wrote the play, then cast the woman who would become his mistress after he cast her in the role. (Stoppard was married three times, with Felicity Kendall as his partner between wives two and three.)
Stoppard fleshes this idea out with a handful of other characters. His mistress, Annie, is married to Max, an actor who is in Henry’s latest (fictional) play. Ironically, Max’s character has just discovered his wife, played by Charlotte (Henry’s wife), cheating on him, which leads to a deliciously awkward play within a play scene that opens the overall play, and is later echoed in a scene between Henry and (now wife) Annie, and a scene with (now ex wife) Charlotte where the latter reveals her many affairs during the marriage.
Rounding out the characters are Henry and Charlotte’s daughter Debbie; Billy, the actor Annie has an emotional affair with; and Brodie, a young former soldier who is imprisoned for setting fire to a wreath on a memorial as a protest.
I think that is all I will say about the plot itself. There is, clearly, a lot of drama, and plenty of candid discussion of sex and relationships.
The central question, as the title hints at, is “what makes love the real thing?” It is easy to dismiss each of the relationships within the play as not the real thing. But is that really the case?
Henry and Charlotte had something that seems in a sense to have been “real” for years, before they grew apart, for various reasons, including Henry’s inability to write sufficiently deep female roles. They have a child, and seem to co-parent well, and they are far from enemies at the end of the play. In fact, Charlotte says that they could well have stayed together - affairs were just flings until Henry took his own with Annie too seriously.
For Max and Annie, was their love “real” at some point? It is hard to know, in no small part because Max, as brilliant as he is on stage in a role where his lines are written for him, loses his personality and seems flat and superficial in the “real life” world of the play. He seems unable to keep up with Annie.
Is Annie and Henry’s relationship “the real thing”? It isn’t clear entirely. It sure seems intense at the start, but between Annie’s emotional affair with Billy, and her seeming infatuation with Brodie, her heart may not be entirely with Henry. And for that matter, is Henry capable entirely of seeing women as fully human? This too isn’t clear. Henry has his head in his fictional worlds so much that it seems he sees everyone else as actors in his plays.
By the time we get to Debbie (age 17 in the play, and off to start her own life), she is cynical about the entire concept of monogamy, which she sees as hopelessly colonialist and bourgeois. So, does “the real thing” even exist?
The Real Thing is brilliantly written, full of witty lines and complex characterization. It is deservingly considered a classic.
There were also a lot of cultural and literary references, which made it perfect for theater nerds and those of us who love live theater. I will particularly note the extensive allusions to Tis Pity She’s a Whore, that old John Ford classic that Stars Playhouse did a few years ago.
This production featured an all-star cast of stage veterans, who had great chemistry on stage. Most of them are ones I have mentioned in previous posts, as they have been in so many different plays on the various local stages.
John Spitzer (who also directed) has long been one of my favorites, in roles ranging from Torvald in A Doll’s House to Oronte in Le Misanthrope. He was a perfect Henry: self-absorbed, clueless, brilliant, perceptive, pedantic, and usually all at once. He was fairly sympathetic while being irritating and flawed. You know exactly why Annie loves him and Charlotte finds him exasperating.
Playing opposite him most of the time was Andy Vega as Annie, who has been in a whole bunch of minor roles in plays I have seen, but most recently notable as the director of Company at The Empty Space. In this role, she sparkled and simpered and schemed, and ultimately stood up for her right to show loyalty to multiple relationships, which Henry finally had to just accept if he wanted her.
Rikk Cheshire has been on stage a lot over the last few years, in roles from Clifford in Cabaret to the creepy Mr. Cox in Cataract House. I’ll mention in this production the deft switch between Max as character in Henry’s play, complete with ludicrous 1980s mustache and restlessness, and the “real” Max as blindsided cuckold. Two completely different characters, making the contrast very real. It was kind of disappointing that he wasn’t in the second act, because he was fun to watch.
I saw Paige Green most recently in a lead role in The Children’s Hour at BCT, so I was definitely looking forward to seeing her again in a different role. She too had to switch characters, although, perhaps as an illustration of Henry’s struggle with female characters, her “stage” role opposite Max seemed a lot flatter than her “real” role as Henry’s ex wife. She got far better lines, so to speak. In any case, I particularly enjoyed the scene where she flippantly reveals her many affairs - a bit of saucy and casual insouciance that clearly disorients Henry as much as his daughter’s sexual freedom.
Jose Magana as Billy had a fairly small role, but he filled it well, as he usually does with whatever he has.
Daniel Ramos, who has been everywhere as of late, in a variety of roles, captured the boorishness and vulgarity of the low-class and feckless Brodie. He has a knack for giving the middle finger to social convention whether in Tennessee Williams, Beckett, or Agatha Christie.
Finally, AnnaKate Crossley, who I am not sure I have seen before on stage - maybe in a minor role? - eye-rolled her way through the teenaged Debbie admirably. I think any of us with teenaged daughters can relate.
Adding to the experience were the creative props and sets, the excellent soundtrack, and delightful 1980s costumes. Overall, it was a well-conceived and executed production, with every detail contributing to the storytelling.
So does “the real thing” exist? That’s an open question. As someone married to my best friend for the last quarter century, I am inclined to say yes. But with the caveat that not everyone will find “the real thing,” and the further comment that the definition of what is “real” isn’t fixed, and, as the play suggests, may look as different as the people who experience it, or search for it.
Perhaps the conclusion could be that it is all “real,” however imperfect and even unsatisfying it might be. As a Gen Xer, I think we may have had it right when we signed off with “It’s been real.” Because, well, it’s been real, man.
I’ll end with my favorite quote from the play:
"I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little..."
I am looking forward to what Ovation Underground does in the future - it has a chance to fill that niche of classic and modern plays that might not sell out a large venue.
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