Aint Nothing Like the Real Thing …

“Realidad” is an adaptation of Tom Stoppard’s play “The Real Thing.” My Irish friend, who describes himself as having “a deep intellectual crush” on Stoppard’s work, immediately took issue with the title.  The translation isn’t right, he said, as he would have thought to incorporate something about truth and love rather than just “reality.”

The title isn’t the only thing that feels a little skewed. “Realidad” is about the culture-producing (part-intellectual, part-commercial, part-political) class of England in the 1980s. (“The Real Thing” premiered in London in 1982, and I believe that “Realidad” is based on a 1986 version.) The four central characters cheat on each other, connive, try to make art, try to make themselves popular and sexy, sharp and accessible, hiding their own failings, try to have satisfying sex, try to negotiate the influx of TV and American pop culture, and at the same time, try to find the real thing whatever that is.  To make matters more complicated, the first scene is also a play-within-a-play about all those things—written by one of the characters.

So, it’s not exactly a love story, or any other kind of classic story that cuts across all lines.  It’s specific to a certain time and place and to a certain theatrical tradition. I would say that the dramatic arcs don’t come through very clearly—it seems to be more about language play, literary references and intellectual trends.

Yet in this case, the play is torn from its own language and set in the conventions of another language and theater.  Watching it in Spanish felt like watching a double-spectacle.  Kind of like that scene in All About My Mother when they act out A Streetcar Named Desire.  First there was the theatricality of the original play, and then the second level: making an English play fit into Spanish language and stage conventions.

The play takes place mostly in interiors with projections to show fire in the fireplace, or the passing of the landscape while sitting on a train.  American pop songs as well as British place names and historical references make up an important part of the story.  All of these, and the characters’ English names, sound weird in their heavy Spanish pronunciation.   Michael Jackson Thriller, Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse of the Heart, etc, just don’t fit, because the songs are supposed to represent a threat to the characters’ guarded literary culture, and yet they seem foreign and distant.

That said, it does have strong moments, and I would, overall, recommend the play.  The actors rescue it. So it’s not a show that will keep you on the edge of the seat.  But at the end, I was glad that I’d seen what I’d seen—this Spanish take on a British play about what’s real and what’s only a matter of culture and perception.

If you are a Tom Stoppard fan, you can see this show Tuesday through Saturday at 20:30 p.m.  Sunday at 19:30 p.m.  No shows on Monday. Tickets run between 11 and 18 euros.  Wednesdays 50% discount; Tuesday and Thursday 30% discount for Carnet Joven. Teatro Maria Guerrero. Metro: Chueca.

By Alexandra Atiya