*The Real Thing

The Real Thing - Tom Stoppard

This play felt like stuff I have written, at least I wrote that stuff before I read this and at least Tom Stoppard gets a lot or work...it also had a writer character which I always cringe at. I'm not sure what to say about this play, it was pretty good, but to continue what I was talking about with All in the Timing, it spends a lot of time creating a reality, connecting the characters with the present of the play's writing and initial performance, which I'm not sure is beneficial or perhaps just not what I want to do. It seems a fairly useless goal to me, it will never be real simply because it is being acted. It does exploit the stage's unreality with some well played time jumps, repetitions in scenery that point out the contradictions between shifting time and place and unchanged characters. I'm sure some sort of middle ground is an answer, but it seems if one is trying to make a point through verisimilitude then one should just make a documentary or live your life to make that point. (That sounds like too much even as I am writing it...wait a minute, words are a fiction too...phew).