Tom Stoppard Versus Mike Nichols
Gigantic new biographies by Hermione Lee and Mark Harris reveal the possibilities and the limits of a life in art.
Jack Taylor/Getty Images (Stoppard); Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images (Nichols)
In 1983, the director Mike Nichols was rehearsing Tom Stoppard’s
The Real Thing on Broadway. The cast included Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, Christine Baranski, Peter Gallagher, and Cynthia Nixon, then 17 years old. Stoppard had flown over from London for rehearsal. According to Hermione Lee’s magisterial new biography, the playwright had a note for Gallagher. Could his character “be more
plangent?” Gallagher, panicked, looked at Nichols, who, according to Lee, said, “Fucked if I know.”