The Real Thingby Tom Stoppard |
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This production was directed by James Ofsink and featured the talents of David Leisk as Henry, Lauren Thomas as Annie, Evan Johnson as Max, Mari Carson as Charlotte, Nathan Livni as Billy, Amineh Helalian as Debbie, and Nick Heacock as Brodie (you can see the Bios from The Real Thing here).
The LOOKOUT! Players production of this show was well received in the Sacramento community and helped to further establish LOOKOUT! as a serious community theatre. Congratulations to everyone involved!
More pictures
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In
Fall 2003, LOOKOUT! Players had the distinction of presenting a lesser-known
gem by Tom Stoppard entitled The Real Thing. The play is semi-autobiographical,
following a group of London thespians and most notably a popular playwright
through the trials of love and infidelity.
The
action opens on a play within a play. Charlotte and Max are acting in
"House of Cards" a play by Henry. In this first scene it seems
as though Charlotte and Max are having a troubled marriage, but really
soon in scene two we discover that it was all an act. In reality, Charlotte
and Henry are married and have a daughter (Debbie). When Max and his
wife Annie stop by to say hello, the audience finds out that unbeknownst
to their spouses, Annie and Henry are having an affair. And thus sets
the premise from which Stoppard's amazing intellect and tender use of
language springboard.
The
play follows Henry and Annie as they struggle in their own relationship
for something that is fundamentally different and more meaningful than
their previous experiences. Stoppard deals with the difficulty of relating
to even those we hold most dear, and the weakness that we each admit
into our lives when we open ourselves to caring for someone else. In
this work especially, Stoppard's gift for engaging dialogue is tempered
with a barrage of poignant monologues that allow us to truly enter the
mind of a playwright divided between his ideal love and his love of
the ideal. In some way each character in The Real Thing searches
for the genuine in their own life. How are we to know whether we've
ever attained 'the real thing' or not?
