
Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing is about love, passion, honesty and articulacy, or rather, inarticulacy. Our protagonist Henry is a playwright, involved with an actress, Annie and likes to think of himself as highly intellectual, believing his art as a writer is sacred and that language should be treasured. This role is executed superbly by Stephen Brennan, whose comic timing makes this play highly witty, and helps the audience digest the wordy nature of the play. Henry may have all the words, but he is unable to put them together when he wants to express to Annie what she means to him. We see Annie getting increasingly frustrated by his lack of words for her which down spirals in attempts to make him jealous.
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