Playwright Tom Stoppard has been getting a bum rap over the years. The conventional wisdom is that Stoppard enchants his audiences by stringing words in front of them like a hypnotist who slowly swings a watch on a chain, and that he isn't the man one thinks of when it comes to probing human feelings on the stage. According to many of his critics, it has only been with his more recent plays--such as Arcadia and The Invention of Love--that Stoppard has revealed a beating heart to match his churning mind.

David Leveaux's revival of The Real Thing, Stoppard's 1982 comedy-drama, refutes this idea. It proves not only that the playwright did infuse his earlier works with pulsing emotion, but t[...]