The only true
| Data | |
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| Title: | The only true |
| Original title: | The real thing |
| Genus: | drama |
| Original language: | English |
| Author: | Tom Stoppard |
| Publishing year: | 1982 |
| Premiere: | 11/16/1982 |
| Place of premiere: | The Strand Theater , London |
| Place and time of the action: | 1st act in London in the early 1980s. 2nd act two to three years later, also in London. One scene each takes place on the train to and in Glasgow . |
| Duration of the premiere | about 3 hours |
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The real deal (English: The Real Thing ) is an intellectual comedy by British playwright Tom Stoppard . In this, Stoppard reverses the classic postulate that art should depict reality , playfully into the opposite in front of the eyes of the audience: In The Only True , the aesthetic illusion claims more truth than 'real' life.
The play received the Evening Standard Award for Best Play in 1982, the Tony Award for Best Play in 1984 and the Tony Award for Best Revival in 2000.
action
Two actresses, two actors, two authors experience and describe the facets of recurring topics on different levels. You are involved in myriad relationships and have been involved in several plays. It is often not clear whether the voice of your heart is speaking from them or the text of a role.
1st act
- 1st scene
When she (Charlotte) comes home from a trip abroad, he (Max) accuses her of having secretly met her lover. As proof, he offers her passport, which he found while rummaging through the apartment. She is completely surprised by the obviously baseless accusations and leaves the apartment.
- 2nd scene
The successful author Henry has been invited to a radio interview and is now looking for his favorite music tracks to be played for the interview. Charlotte, with whom he is obviously dating, reluctantly helps him with this. When Max comes to visit, it turns out that Charlotte and Max are appearing as actors in Henry's new play The House of Cards and the first scene was part of those performances. Later, Max's wife Annie, also an actress, appears at Henry and Charlotte's. When Charlotte and Max briefly leave the room and Henry is alone with Annie, it turns out that the two are having an affair. Annie tells Henry to leave Charlotte for her, but Henry is undecided. Max later reports on Annie's political commitment: She met the soldier Brodie on the way to an anti-missile demonstration , who set fire to the wreath on the memorial of the unknown soldier on the sidelines of the demonstration and was arrested for it. Now Annie has founded a committee to liberate Brody as a political prisoner.
- 3rd scene
When Annie comes home from a rehearsal, Max accuses her of having secretly met her lover Henry. As proof, he offers her a handkerchief that belongs to Henry and that Max found in the car. Annie declares that she loves Henry and ends her relationship with Max.
- 4th scene
Annie and Henry moved in together and are enjoying their fresh happiness. Annie rehearses her role in August Strindberg's Miss Julie , while Henry works on a new play: The Only True Play about love he promised Annie. Annie continues to visit prisoner Brodie, while Henry rarely sees a daughter they have with Charlotte, Debbie.
2nd act
- 1st scene
Annie and Henry are in the shared apartment. Annie rehearses her role in John Ford's Shame That She Was a Whore , while Henry works on a script to pay support for Debbie. He never wrote the only true piece about love that he promised Annie. For this Annie has motivated the prisoner Brodie to write his story as a play, which Brodie did with great enthusiasm and literary clumsiness. When asked, Herny Annie gives his opinion of the Brodie play in the most derogatory tones, which leads to a dispute about the value of writers and their stories - true or fictional. Henry compares a play with a cricket bat : just as the bat helps a ball to fly big with a small blow, so does the play with the author's idea. It goes a long way in ensuring that the idea flies playfully and far. Brodie's piece can't do that.
- 2nd scene
Annie travels to Glasgow for rehearsals and performances of Shame She Was a Whore . On the train she meets her young acting colleague Billie, who flirts with her - at first innocently and awkwardly and in his own words, later with the words of his role in the joint play.
- 3rd scene
Henry is visiting Charlotte's apartment because their daughter Debbie wants to move through the country with a young man. Father and daughter find a common level of conversation through the Elvis song All Shook up , and Debbie talks about their sexual experiences and a generous attitude towards sex, love and loyalty that at least amazes Henry: "Exclusive rights are not love, it is colonization" . After Debbie leaves, Henry learns that Charlotte had a number of lovers during the years they were married and considers him the last romantic.
- 4th scene
Annie and Billie rehearse and play a scene out of a shame that she was a whore who also makes it clear that something is going on between the two.
- 5th scene
When Annie comes home from the Glasgow performances, Henry accuses her of having Billie as a lover. Like the character he designed in Act 1, Henry ransacked the apartment but found no evidence. Also, he is far from the sovereignty he has ascribed to his character. Annie confirms the affair with Billie, but at the same time declares that she loves Henry and wants to stay with him. Henry loudly confirms his self-image as the last romantic to believe in the only true love as a sexually monogamous relationship. However, he notices that this picture is shaking more and more, and is left perplexed.
- 6th scene
Annie and Billie shoot a scene from Brody's play, which Henry has now rewritten into a television film and improved - partly with his own ideas. During a break in filming, Billie asks Annie to leave her husband, which Annie vehemently refuses.
- 7th scene
Henry and Annie "are beyond hypocrisy," as Henry puts it. On the last day of shooting the Brodie film, Annie was running late. Billie then called and had a clarifying conversation with Henry. She loves Henry even though she knows she's hurting him, and she still doesn't know how to leave Billie even though she wants to.
- 8th scene
Brodie is visiting Annie and Henry. The end of the television film is shown on video . Brodie is a rough, tough guy who complains about Henry's changes to his text and explains on the side that it is not Annie's tireless commitment in the committee, but world politics who are responsible for his dismissal. Henry is irritated and doesn't understand what Annie could ever have found in Brodie, and then she says that he was a nice and apolitical boy who wanted nothing but to please her and was imprisoned for her. When Brodie leaves, the phone rings : It's Max who is getting married again.
Content
Essential storylines revolve around the topic of love , marriage , loyalty and sex as well as the field of art, especially literature , music , theater and film . Stoppard repeatedly uses literary works and pieces of music to help outline or describe the statements on the subject of love. A third, inconspicuous but recurring aspect is the question of the motivation for our actions, in the private as well as in the socio- political area.
References to literary works
- James Joyce , Finnegans Wake : is mentioned
- Jean-Paul Sartre : Henry once became famous with a replica of Sartre
- William Shakespeare , Othello : plot with cloth as evidence is taken over
- August Strindberg , Miss Julie : Annie is rehearsing
- Chekhov , Three Sisters : briefly mentioned by Annie
- John Ford , a pity that she was a whore: is played by Annie and Billie in part, Henry arranges it falsely John Webster to
- Karl Marx , Das Kapital : is used by Henry as a comparison for Brody's piece
and more
Composers, bands and pieces of music named or played
- The Crystals : Da Doo Ron Ron
- Émile Waldteufel : Ice Skaters Waltz
- Pink Floyd , Janet Baker (as examples of good pop music) and Maria Callas vs. Wayne Fontana with "Um um um um um um", Neil Sedaka with Oh! Carol , Herman's Hermits , The Hollies , The Everly Brothers , Brenda Lee , The Supremes and The Righteous Brothers with You've Lost That Lovin 'Feelin' (as examples of bad pop music)
- Herman's Hermits : "I'm Into Something Good"
- Strauss , Giuseppe Verdi , Monteverdi
- The Pointer Sisters
- Beethoven vs. The Big Bopper , Buddy Holly , Ritchie Valens ( The Day the Music Died )
- Elvis Presley : "All Shook Up"
- Bach vs. Procol Harum , as the latter Bach's Air on the G string , recovery
- The Monkees : I'm a Believer
Quotes
- Always have all replicas ready, exactly when you need them. That's the difference between a piece and real life - time to think, time to start again. (Charlotte)
- Public attitudes follow the structure of private disturbances. (Henry)
- This is what life is about - happiness and unhappiness randomly scattered and people who care about others and don't necessarily know all the answers. (Max)
- To love and be loved is unliterary. It is happiness that can only be expressed in banality and desire. (Henry)
- Liters of ink and miles of ribbons are spent on the misery of the unheard lover, but not a word about the unbearable boredom of the person who does not hear him. (Annie)
- There are no obligations, only contracts - and they have to be concluded every day. (Charlotte)
- Here we have a democracy . We are all sitting on a hillside and let popular speakers turn our heads. Then we each throw a pebble in a pot and count the pebbles. (Billie speaks text written by Henry)
All quotations follow the translation by Hilde Spiel.
translation
The one and only was translated in 1983 by Hilde Spiel and was published by Reinbek near Hamburg. Jussenhoven & Fischer is currently representing the piece.