Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Watched Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" at the American Airlines Theatre yesterday. Directed by Sam Gold, the production boasted of stars such as Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Cynthia Nixon (in the leads) and Josh Hamilton. They were all over-shadowed by Ronan Raftery (Billy), who spoke his words with emotional clarity and distinguished relish, and whose physical presence lit up the stage. The first half was tedious, but the second half picked up, mostly because of a terrific monologue spoken by McGregor comparing good writing to a well-made cricket bat, and because of Raftery's performance. Ronan Raftery. Photo from United Agents .

Singapore Jade had been insisting that I read this Stoppard play for quite some time, and finally made it impossible for me to put her off by giving me a copy the other day. Plays don't come alive to me until I see them performed, and The Invention of Love struck me, on first reading, as more brainy than acute, more showy than moving. But Stoppard's Housman and Wilde came back to me again and again in the last few days, while I was waiting for the bus, or listening to a friend's chatter, or working out in the SAFRA gym near my house. The desire to lay down your life for your lover. A desire represented in the play by repeated references to the Theban band, an army made of same-sex lovers, slaughtered by the Macedonians. Housman wants to lay down his life for his love, Moses Jackson, but the latter is straight and does not love him back, and Housman remains closeted all his life. Wilde, on the other hand, gives his life and reputation for his love, refusing to run from stan...

Saturday matinee. GREAT seats in the orchestra, seats reserved for people with disabilities. The rocker Syd Barrett (of progressive rock band Pink Floyd), the god Pan fluting from the wall to a young girl gazing dreamily at him; the diehard professor, Max Morrow, who remains in the British Communist party after 1956 Hungary; his protege, Jan, a Polish supporter of Dubcek's "socialism with a human face," who returns to Poland after the Soviet invasion of 1968; Max's wife, Eleanor, who teaches Sappho, who is dying of cancer; Ferdinand, the Havel figure, who is always getting others to sign petitions to the Czech government; the Plastic People of the Universe, the rock band persecuted by the Czech authorities, and so becomes a celebrated symbol of resistance when all they want is to be left alone to play their music. The philosophical exchanges are fast, furious and razor-sharp. Many of the characters, especially Eleanor, were moving. But the ending was too neat when Esm...