The Real Thing, Old Vic, London

Anna Mackmin’s production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, presents the action surrounded by a large frame, drawing attention to the whole play as a work of art. This is fitting as the debates on stage focus on the nature of art, what makes an artist, and the differences between artistic and actual truths – sometimes navel-gazingly so.

It would be churlish not to acknowledge the delights of Stoppard’s piece, its humour and complex yet playful structuring: the Chinese box effect that presents us with a snippet of Henry’s play, before delving into Henry’s ‘real’ life; the play’s series of neat pairings, which are in flux just as much as they apparently complete each other.

These pairs include Henry (Toby Stephens) and each wife; another contrasting couple in the playwright Henry and the philistine Brodie (Jordan Young); not to mention the pairing of the two women themselves, Annie (Hattie Morahan) and Charlotte (Fenella Woolgar). Woolgar, in particular, shines as Henry’s acerbic ex-wife and is a fitting foil to the vagaries of romantic love being played out between Henry and the more conventionally passionate Hattie.

All these games with structure support the play’s theme of good versus bad art, high versus low art. Annie, Henry’s second wife, causes tensions in their marriage when she adopts a political protestor (Brodie, arrested for burning a wreath on the Cenotaph) who wants to write a play. Henry is forced to keep the peace by becoming the play’s editor, despite his discomfort with the play’s didacticism.

Toby Stephens’s robust physical presence sometimes seems at odds with our notion of the cerebral writer. Nonetheless, this seems to suit a character that feels at the mercy of his physical urges. And Stoppard makes it clear Henry is no aesthete – he believes that Bach stole from Procol Harum. So when Henry delivers his central speech about the artistry of art he is arguing from the centre ground.

There is something dated about this kind of long set piece, that is so obviously designed to be viewed as important. But the issue of high versus low art is as present today as it ever was. Just as Adorno decried the ‘low’ music of jazz, so today’s low art sometimes becomes tomorrow’s high art – something that Stoppard doesn’t seem to consider. What he does do, however, is effectively contrast good art with bad art. Bad art is wholly polemical, lacks artistry and is obvious.

Speaking of obvious, the stock character of Brodie, yet another comical, less than bright and rather aggressive Scotsman, is one of the play’s weaker points. Whilst comedy often relies on the stereotype, it also derives its greatest impact from subverting our expectations - there is a certain laziness in this characterisation which does not speak of the subtle and impactful art that Stoppard is making a case for. Nonetheless, it is Stoppard’s sparkling humour and wordplay, especially in relation to the two couples, that keeps us interested in the play.

Indeed art should tackle the big issues – and Stoppard relentlessly involves us in questions of art and authorship. However, we are left feeling a little like Stoppard is musing with himself, rather than engaging with the audience. And the debate very much stops at the point of the playwright’s dilemma and goes no further. By depicting a wholly unworthy political character and cause in Brodie, Stoppard avoids looking deeper into the dilemma of the artist’s engagement with the political.

Till 5 June 2010