Real Thing Henry the Playwright

¶ … Real Thing

Henry

The playwright Henry is a sophisticated, intelligent, and cultured man -- or so the man would like to seem to his general, listening public when he appears, as himself, on air. But a literary ear does not mean one has a correspondingly sophisticated ear for music. In the second scene of Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" the main male protagonist is sorting through his record collection. He has been asked to appear on a BBC radio program entitled "Desert Island Disks." On the program people of note explain which musical songs they would bring with them if stranded upon a desert island and why they have chosen these selections. All guests, Henry seems to think, are faced with a quandary -- do they say what they 'really' like or do they say what they think they should like, in an attempt to create as desired persona through serious music? Music may be the deepest and truest of the arts, the art that give the listener his or her most access to his or her soul. Henry's soul is so out of touch with his emotions, however impressive his intellect, what he 'really' likes is quite popular and pedestrian, like the Monkees. Henry uses the techniques of posturing, quotation, and irony to avoid touching such real emotions when he is talking -- yet clearly such falseness of emotions affect him as an artist, as the first scene from one of his plays shows a brittle, witty interplay between a man and a woman that has no real emotional resonance between the two characters. Although Henry is confident about what people 'really' like in art -- "I'm a Believer" versus the arias of Maria Callas, his own 'real' emotional life is so stunted he cannot produce 'real' art, he can only posture, as he does assembling his listening list for "Desert Island Disks."

Section II Brodie

Music is used in ironic fashion throughout the production of "The Real Thing," but nowhere nearly with as much deft and skill as the deployment of "I'm a Believer," a pop confection by the manufactured faux Beatles American musical group 'The Monkees.' Not only is Henry searching to convey reality into the manufactured structure of his prose, but his lover Annie is on her own journey to find 'The Real Thing,' in her actress's art as a performer. To find this, she develops a relationship with a political prisoner called Brodie, whom Henry mocks. At the beginning of the play Brodie seems to have real political convictions, but he cannot structure a play properly. Much to Henry's chagrin, Annie persuades him to retool Brodie's halting efforts into marketable dialogue, in a made-for television movie based on Brodie's real-life experiences.

However, in the final scene between Annie and Brodie, it becomes clear that Brodie is not a believer at all. While Henry truly loves the tune by the Monkees, while at least there is some affection in the playwright's heart and soul for Annie, his own work, and the art he attempts to serve, however imperfectly, Brodie's political convictions and aspirations for art, Annie learns, were all for show. The scene ends with Annie telling Brodie off, because he has not fulfilled her expectations of being true in his art and true to his convictions in real life -- all he really wants is sex.