The Real Thing

play by Stoppard

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

July 16, 2026

Quick Summary

The Real Thing is a 1982 play by Tom Stoppard, a Czech-born British playwright known for his verbal brilliance and structural dexterity. This play is described as Stoppard's first romantic comedy and delves into themes of art and reality, featuring a playwright as its central character.12

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

2 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

Glenn Close
Theatrical work
…1992 for her work in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, respectively. In 1995 she impressed Broadway audiences as the delusional former film star Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatrical production of Sunset Boulevard, for which she won another Tony Award, this one for best actress in…
Read More
…1992 for her work in The Real Thing and Death and the Maiden, respectively. In 1995 she impressed Broadway audiences as the delusional former film star Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatrical production of Sunset Boulevard, for which she won another Tony Award, this one for best actress in…
Read More

Tom Stoppard
Plays
The Tony-winning The Real Thing (1982), Stoppard’s first romantic comedy, deals with art and reality and features a playwright as a protagonist. Arcadia, which juxtaposes 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century chaos theory and is set in a Derbyshire country house, premiered in 1993, and The Invention of Love,…
Read More
The Tony-winning The Real Thing (1982), Stoppard’s first romantic comedy, deals with art and reality and features a playwright as a protagonist. Arcadia, which juxtaposes 19th-century Romanticism and 20th-century chaos theory and is set in a Derbyshire country house, premiered in 1993, and The Invention of Love,…
Read More

Mike Nichols
Middle years: Silkwood, Working Girl, and The Birdcage
…Tony for directing the play The Real Thing. He then returned to the big screen with Heartburn (1986), an adaptation of Ephron’s semiautobiographical novel about a pregnant woman who learns that her husband is cheating on her. Streep and Nicholson stood in for Ephron and journalist Carl Bernstein, Ephron’s then…
Read More
…Tony for directing the play The Real Thing. He then returned to the big screen with Heartburn (1986), an adaptation of Ephron’s semiautobiographical novel about a pregnant woman who learns that her husband is cheating on her. Streep and Nicholson stood in for Ephron and journalist Carl Bernstein, Ephron’s then…
Read More