This play is juicer than V8.

At 8 p.m., tomorrow and Saturday, in 111 Forum No Refund Theatre (NRT) will be performing Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Characters are hooking up, breaking up, falling in love, falling out of love, making dubious decisions and the audience gets to watch.

"But this play is not a soap opera," director Jason Whittle (senior-electrical engineering) said. "It's a much more visceral experience."

This claim would be a bitter pill to swallow if it were not for the fact that the play was written by Stoppard. Stoppard is perhaps most known for his Oscar award-winning screenplay Shakespeare in Love, but has also won a slew of Tonys for his other plays.

Whittle says he enjoys the complexity of Stoppard's plays.

"The whole play could be about Max, who is only in three scenes of this play," Whittle said.

But what made Whittle choose The Real Thing out of Stoppard's library of award winning plays seemed to be a lack of options.

"I decided to do The Real Thing because other Stoppard plays have either been done too much or they're being performed later this year," Whittle said.

Since Stoppard's characters and their relationships tend to be very real, casting for the play was an arduous task for Whittle.

"The way NRT does its group casting forced me to pair up actors in my head without being able to see them act together," he said.

However, assistant director Kim Cicconi (sophomore-journalism) believes the process worked out great.

"We have a great cast for this play," she said. "There are both main stays and new people on the cast and it's been a good experience overall."

Still Cicconi said since the relationships in the play are so intense, it can be difficult to have the actors act like long-term lovers.

"In the beginning there was a lot of 'don't be awkward,' " she said.

Whittle said the actors had to develop relationships with each other quickly so he helped out the best he could as the director.

"Sometimes I would just position the actors so that they had to look into each other's eyes and interact," he said.

Micah Winarchick, who plays Henry in the play, did not see the experience as awkward.

"It just takes a couple run-throughs to get a sense of the scene," Winarchick said.

Jane Richardson (junior-mechanical engineering) agreed.

"Honestly, the hardest thing for me in this play was learning a British accent," she said.

Richardson did admit that the cast has yet to practice the kissing scenes.

"We haven't practiced any of the kissing scenes yet which might get interesting since I'm kind of a slut in the play," she said.

Still there's an overwhelming feel of optimism throughout the cast and crew that Whittle attributes to the beauty of this play.

"I hope when the audience leaves, they remember to appreciate the millions of things that love can be," he said.

If that does not do it for you Cicconi adds, "you just can't go wrong with British wit."