The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality.
The play focuses on the relationship between Henry and Annie, an actress who is part of a committee to free Brodie, a Scottish soldier imprisoned for burning a memorial wreath during a protest.
Characters
Max: "40-ish" male actor who begins the play married to Annie. Acts in Henry's new play, House of Cards.
Charlotte: "35-ish" female actor who begins the play married to Henry. Acts across Max in House of Cards.
Henry: "40-ish" playwright who, at the beginning of the play, is married to Charlotte and conducting an affair with Annie. Both seems to believe in love and approach it with cynicism.
Annie: "30-ish" female actor who begins the play married to Max, she has been conducting an ongoing affair with Henry while also working as an activist for Brodie, a soldier who was arrested and imprisoned for setting fire to the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.
The Real Thing
The Real Thing or Real Thing(s) may refer to:
Literature
Music
Performers
Albums
The Real Thing (UK band)
The Real Thing are a British soul group formed in the 1970s. In addition to a string of British hits, the band charted internationally with their song "You to Me Are Everything", which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 28 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart and No. 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. By number of sales, they were the most successful black rock/soul act in England during the 1970s. The journalist, author and founder of Mojo, Paul Du Noyer credits them alongside Deaf School with restoring "Liverpool's musical reputation in the 1970s" with their success.
History
Begun in 1970 by Chris Amoo, Dave Smith, Kenny Davis and Ray Lake, The Real Thing's live, progressive soul-influenced covers of American hits attracted enough attention for them to secure a recording deal with EMI. The singles they released through EMI in 1972 and 1973 such as "Vicious Circle" were, despite their high quality, not successful sellers (and have not so far been included on any of band's compilation albums). But the band persisted, even after the departure of Kenny Davis. They did appear on Opportunity Knocks (the TV talent show). The turn-around for their career began with their collaboration with David Essex and Pye Records. They toured internationally with Essex, recording with him a number of popular songs, though none were big charters. After Chris Amoo's brother Eddie joined the band, The Real Thing finally found chart success with the catchy pop soul single "You to Me Are Everything", which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 28 on Billboard's "R&B Singles" and No. 64 on Billboard's "Hot 100". Their follow-up, "Can't Get By Without You", did not chart in the US but was still a success in the United Kingdom, where it reached number 2.
The Real Thing (story)
"The Real Thing" is a short story by Henry James, first syndicated by S. S. McClure in multiple American newspapers and then published in the British publication Black and White in April 1892 and the following year as the title story in the collection, The Real Thing and Other Stories published by Macmillan. This story, often read as a parable, plays with the reality-illusion dichotomy that fascinated James, especially in the later stages of his career. For the illustrator who narrates the story, the genuine article proves all too useless for his commercial purposes. The story portrays the unfortunate victims of a society in which reality and representation are closely intertwined in ways that make art a difficult project to untangle the two.
Plot summary
The narrator, an unnamed illustrator and aspiring painter, hires a faded genteel couple, the Monarchs, as models, after they have lost most of their money and must find some line of work. They are the "real thing" in that they perfectly represent the aristocratic type, but they prove inflexible for the painter's work. He comes to rely much more on two lower-class subjects who are nevertheless more capable, Oronte, an Italian, and Miss Churm, a lower-class Englishwoman.
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