You can count on
Bad Habit Productions for a sterling production just about every time out. And,
it seems, every time out with a Stoppard play is sheer magic. (They created a
crystal clear ARCADIA
season before last, not an easy accomplishment.) Their current production of
THE REAL THING is the real McCoy. Director A. Nora Long even found ways to
tweak the scene changes for extra laughs. Hurry, though, it ends Nov. 23rd)
Stoppard cuts
pretty close to the bone with THE REAL THING. The central character is a
British playwright just like him with ex-wives and children to support—and Stoppard, like the fictional
writer, occasionally leaves the rarified air of the theater to write for the
movies, not really a hardship one might argue, since he won an Oscar and a
permanent place in Academy lore for his droll acceptance speech. (Roberto
Benini had just shocked the well heeled attendees by crawling on the backs of
their chairs to get to the stage but Stoppard one-upped him by announcing in a
slow monotone that “Inside, I’m Roberto Benini.”)
Instead of his
usual propensity for brainy philosophical and architectural allusions (to
Wittgenstein or Lancelot “Capability” Brown), Stoppard addresses the vagaries of
being in love in THE REAL THING. The allusions are still there but this time,
the references come from comic or tragic romantic sources like Oscar Wilde’s
Lady Bracknell or Noel Coward’s Amanda… and I mustn’t forget that telltale
Shakespearean handkerchief he works in to the mix.
Stoppard is
fascinated by what seems real and what is real (the first scene being a trick)
but of course, none of it is because this is only a play—but we happily suspend our disbelief for the delicious ride and
the flashy attempt to inspect true love in the midst of messy affairs and
broken hearts.
Stoppard’s
stand-in, Henry, in the Bad Habit production is portrayed by Bob Mussett, who
gives a knockout performance right from the get-go but especially at the play’s
emotional end (something the British actors I’ve seen in the role haven’t been
able to pull off). Mussett is glib, he’s charming, he’s infuriating and in Nora
A. Long’s exceptional production, he’s vulnerable.
R. Nelson Lacey,
too, is delightful as Henry’s awfully sweet friend (even after Henry purloins
his wife). Lacey gets to play tough in the play within the play as the suspicious
writer in the first scene. (It’s not this confusing when you see it live.) And
he gets to crumble and break our hearts, just as the Righteous Brothers sing
about “something beautiful dying.” Likewise, William Bowry gets to play two
characters in hot pursuit and does so seamlessly.
The women in the
play are, for the most part, glorified objects of affection, exactly what the
writer’s actress-wife complains about in the second scene. That’s not to say
their roles aren’t meaty. Gillian Mackay-Smith as the above mentioned
actress/wife makes a meal out of righteous indignation. Shanae Burch gets to
hold her own with her smug father on the subject(s) of sex and Courtland Jones
navigates all the men with a sleek, sensual facility. Again, wonderful ensemble
work from Bad Habit.
