In London for the Holidays? Theatrical Gifts for Everyone on Your List

So who needs more possessions? The holidays afford the chance to give the gift of theatergoing, the kind of present that will be remembered (one hopes) throughout the year. With that in mind, what follows is a handful of London theater suggestions for the festive season.
Enjoy, and curtain up!

For parents (or grandparents)

“Singin' in the Rain” at the Palace Theater should fit the bill, whether or not your grandparents (or parents, even) first saw the 1952 MGM film musical at the time of its release. Set against the backdrop of the uneasy transition in moviedom from silent pictures to the talkies, the Gene Kelly film has spawned multiple stage versions on both sides of the Atlantic, of which the director Jonathan Church's current incarnation is by some measure the best of the three that I have seen.

Inheriting Kelly's role as silent film star D on Lockwood, onetime Tony nominee Adam Cooper (“Swan Lake”) makes as charming and insouciant a leading man as you could wish for, and his own family must thrill at the larger-than-life facsimile of Mr. Cooper (sporting an umbrella, ‘natch) on view to passers-by in front of the playhouse. The production has time-honored songs (“Good Morning,” “Moses Supposes,” and the title number among them), nifty choreography from Andrew Wright and lashings of real rain. Go and get soaked! And I don't just mean over that extra intermission gin and tonic.

Is that just too familiar a title, or you would you rather give the family a taste of next year's likely Broadway biggie? In that case, the Royal Shakespeare Company's buoyant and witty “Matilda” is a good bet, continuing strong in London at the Cambridge Theater even as its New York bow gets nearer. A child-oriented piece that possibly means even more to adults, Matth ew Warchus's production also offers a prime man-as-woman star turn, more on which below.

For lovers

“The Effect,” running in repertory at the National Theater's Cottesloe auditorium through Feb. 23, represents an intriguing date-night theatrical prospect largely because it places the speedy bloom of passion at its feverishly pulsating heart. One frequently hears the term “meet cute” to describe (often sniffily) an adorable if unlikely impromptu meeting.

But initial concerns that this play's Connie and Tristan might not rise above the shopworn cliché inherent in the above phrase are soon dispelled by the unexpected path forged by Lucy Prebble's play, which lands its newfound couple in the world of pharmaceutical research where desire is not to be trusted. Is romance actually having its day, the play asks, or are such reactions mere ly drug-induced? Ms. Prebble seems to come down on something resembling the primacy of truly authentic feeling, but not before taking her audience on a wild emotional ride. What more could you ask from the theater â€" well, that and Billie Piper's gorgeous portrayal of Connie, which ranks among the year's best performances.

For students

You don't have to be engaged in academia, of course, to enjoy the current Royal Court mainstage entry, “In the Republic of Happiness,” but it helps to be alive and alert to theatrical form when taking in the playwright Martin Crimp's latest. And if students don't fit that bill, who does? And as London's â€" some would say the English-speaking theater's â€" premier playhouse for new writing, the Court has the added appeal of the “cool” factor, and the further attractions of the downstairs café/bar don't hurt, either.

Told across three scenes, the shifts between visual environments managed with characteristically easeful dazzle by the designer Miriam Buether, Mr. Crimp here anatomizes a world given over to self-obsession and self-improvement whereby our constant quest for happiness has resulted only in hollowing us out. Brainiacs in the house will enjoy making clear the connections that are implicit in writing that asks the audience to do some work and then pays off with an ending that recalls (in tone if not content) the finale to Robert Altman's seminal film, “Nashville,” as a requiem for a benumbed society. Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Court, has done a tricky piece proud, and those who don't walk out â€" as quite a few did at the performance I caught â€" will stay to cheer and possibly even book to see the show again.

For gender-benders

You thought cross-dressing was confined to the British tradition of the seasonal pantomime, which demands that a leggy young woman play the principal boy and usually casts a man of some seniority as the principal dame? (Ian McKellen, of all distinguished folk, filled that latter bill for two consecutive seasonal runs of “Aladdin” at the Old Vic.)

Pantos continue to proliferate on cue across the capital, but the so-called “legit” theater, too, seems to have gone cross-dressing mad. Consider for starters Miss Trunchbull that armor-plated harridan of a headmistress in “Matilda.” David Leonard is doing the honors now, while original leading man (um, woman?) Bertie Carvel readies for his New York debut. Not to be outdone are Mark Rylance and the cast of the all-male productions of “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III,” now at the Apollo Theater following sellout engagements at Shakespeare's Globe last summer, and Simon Russell Beale in “Privates On Parade” at the Noel Coward Theater sporting baubles, bangles and sometimes not much at all as Terri Dennis, the campest â€" and most irresistible â€" of military captains.

Too many men, what about the women? Get in line for return tickets for Phyllida Lloyd's all-female “Julius Caesar” at the Donmar: the London play that boasts by some measure the most swagger in town.

For someone you hope never to see again

“V iva Forever!”, at the Piccadilly Theater: Gift this one, scored to the back catalog of the Spice Girls, to someone from whom you hope to part company: trust me, they'll never speak to you again.

Being French Means Never Having to Say...

LONDON - President François Hollande on Thursday acknowledged the sufferings inflicted on Algeria during more than a century of French colonial rule in a statement that fell short of an apology.

In a speech to the Algerian Parliament, during a visit that coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the country's independence, Mr. Hollande spoke of the “profoundly unjust and brutal system” imposed on its people for 132 years.

He had signaled in advance, however, that he would offer neither repentance nor apologies as part of his mission to turn a new page in the often troubled relations between France and its former colony.

“I am not here to repent or apologize, I am here to tell the truth,” he told a news conference on Wednesday.

Half a century after the end of a brutal war of independence in which, by the most conservative estimates, 400,000 people lost their lives, the legacy of the conflict persists on both sides of the Mediterranean.

It even made its way into this year's French election campaign in which Nicolas Sarkozy, Mr. Hollande's conservative rival, was accused of chasing anti-immigration votes among the pieds noirs community, the French who fled Algeria at the time of independence.

Algerians have longed for an apology from successive French presidents and while many countries have apologized for their historical transgressions, France has never apologized for its actions in Algeria.

A poll this week by the CSA polling organizat ion for BFM TV found that only 13 percent of French support an apology. An additional 26 percent support an apology if Algeria apologizes for its atrocities during the war and its aftermath. But 35 percent of Frenchmen oppose an apology under any conditions.

(Read comments, in French, on the debate from readers of the magazine Le Point.)

The deep wounds of the war are still a part of contemporary politics and society in France. Not least of all because French North Africans, France's largest non-European minority community, continue to occupy an uneasy place in France today.

Nabila Ramdani, a Frenchwoman of Algerian descent, wrote bluntly in The Guardian this week, that “French-Algerians Are Still Second-class Citizens.”

Many of Mr. Hollande's supporters are from the French-Algerian minority and it was a constituency that paid particular attention to his trip and his words.

What President Hollande did offer on Thursday was to make it easier for Algerians to make a new life in France. That probably means more to the thousands of unemployed youth hoping to emigrate than any number of expressions of French regret. (French-Algerians also have one of the highest unemployment rates in France.)

He promised to streamline a visa process that already grants access to more than 100,000 Algerians each year. The demand for visas should not become “an obstacle course, or worse still, a humiliation,” he told the Algerian parliament.

The Socialist president said it was in both countries' interests to ensure a flow of people. But, with a n apparent nod to anti-immigration sentiments at home, he said it was necessary to “manage” the flow of immigrants.

Algeria's Le Matin noted that of 160,000 visa applications last year, 15 percent were turned down.

As Mr. Hollande took a step on Thursday to heel old wounds, some commentators said there were also hard-headed calculations behind his initiative.

A dozen government ministers and senior executives from top French firms were with him on his trip, noted the iAfrica news Website, adding that France's economy sorely needed a boost and better ties with Algeria might help to provide it.

A New Start for the Koreas (or Not)

HONG KONG - All the countries involved in talks to wind down North Korea's nuclear program have chosen leaders this year - Park Geun-hye won the presidency in South Korea on Wednesday - and there has been some optimism among experts in the region that a chance might be at hand to revive the moribund six-party process.

The North's successful launching of a long-range rocket last week could complicate any new nuclear talks, but it also seemed to make them all the more urgent. As Ms. Park said at a news conference Thursday morning in Seoul, the launch “showed how grave the security reality is that we are faced with.”

During her campaign, Ms. Park, a conservative and the daughter of the late dictator Park Chung-hee, criticized the hard-line approach of th e unpopular incumbent, President Lee Myung-bak. But that distancing, many analysts said, was more about election strategy than a reliable indicator of her future policies toward the North.

North Korea's state propagandists were having none of that, however, suggesting on the eve of the election that a Park administration would merely be an extension of Mr. Lee's.

“It is as clear as noonday that the inter-Korean relations will enter into another five years of collapse if the group of gangsters bereft of elementary ethics and morality is allowed to stay in power,” said a commentary in Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party.

The article, cited by the official state news agency K.C.N.A., said that North Korea “will never pardon traitors defaming the dignity of its supreme leadership but deal a sledgehammer blow at them.”

That's overblown, inflammatory language, yes, but it's almost boilerplate for the North - and it stops short of the regime's usual threat to turn Seoul into a sea of fire.

“North Korea will wait a few months to see if Park Geun-hye will appease it with cash,” Andrei Lankov, a North Korea specialist at Kookmin University in Seoul, told my colleague Choe Sang-hun. “If she does not - and it looks unlikely that she will, given her statements so far and the hardliners surrounding her - then North Korea will launch provocations.”

The six-party talks, which started in 2003, were meant to persuade North Korea to shut down its nuclear weapons program in exchange for food aid, foreign investment and security assurances. The talks themselves have been hosted by Beijing.

But the fitful negotiations fully broke down in 2009, after which the North conducted various tests of missiles and nuclear devices. A series of incidents the following year put the six-party process into a deep freeze: The North was implicated in the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship that drowned 46 sailors; engaged in an artillery exchange in which 50 South Koreans died; revealed a new industrial-scale uranium enrichment plant; and resumed work on a light-water reactor that could be used to extract plutonium.

These incidents only served to harden Mr. Lee's North Korean policy - and Washington's as well - and it remains to be seen whether Ms. Park will be inclined to soften that approach.

She “prefers a cautious rapprochement,” as Sang-hun reported. “She said she would decouple humanitarian aid from politics and try to meet the new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.”

Mr. Kim was named “supreme leader” by the Korean Workers' Party in April.

The other (s)elections among the six-party members this year: in Russia, in May, with the return of President Vladimir Putin; in the United States, in November, with Barack Obama's re-election; in China, also in November, with the selection of Xi Jinping as the head of the Communist Party; and in Japan earlier this week, with the conservative Shinzo Abe expected to be sworn in as prime minister on Dec. 26.

John Delury, a professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul, noted in an article for CNN that Mr. Kim's fledgling regime “has signaled an interest in improving inter-Korean relations” while de-emphasizing military spending to focus on economic developme nt. An excerpt from his piece:

If the next government in Seoul makes a bold, strategic decision to re-engage the North, there is good reason to expect that inter-Korean dynamics can improve markedly, reviving everything from humanitarian aid and development assistance, to family reunions and cultural exchanges, to economic cooperation and political dialogue.

If Kim Jong-un is going to engineer a shift from “military-first” to “It's the economy, stupid,” he is going to need Seoul's encouragement - and he doesn't have five years to wait. It is up to the stronger power to unclench its fist first, so that the leader of the weaker state can outstretch his hand.

Which of the two Koreas is the stronger? Consider this fact - South Korea's annual defense spending is roughly the size of the entire North Korean economy.

But what about the nukes? If Seoul, Washington and Beijing coordinate resumed engagement with Pyongyang smartly, there sh ould be a way to build gradual denuclearization into the process of improving political and economic relations. That, after all, is the only conceivable way North Korea will give up its nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Delury, known for his trenchant political insights as well as his wry sense of humor, added: “The joke in Seoul now is that if the Koreas ever reunify, at least the South will get a viable space program.”

If you were calling the diplomatic shots, what would you do - reach out to the North with unconditional food aid and supplies, put tough conditions on future assistance, shut off the North completely, or pursue some other strategy? Do you think the North will ever willingly surrender its nuclear capabilities? And if you were Kim Jong-un, facing a newly installed roster of six-party leaders and with a successful rocket launching now on your résumé, what would be your strategy?

IHT Quick Read: Dec. 20

NEWS With the election of Park Geun-hye as president on Wednesday, South Korea extended the tenure of its staunchly pro-American governing party and handed power to the daughter of South Korea's longest-ruling dictator, the first woman to win the post in a deeply patriarchal part of Asia. Choe Sang-Hun reports from Seoul.

Security officials in China have been rounding up members of the Church of Almighty God, a renegade Christian group whose adherents predict that the world will end on Saturday. Andrew Jacobs reports from Beijing.

The Russian Parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly vo ted in support of a bill that would prohibit the adoption of Russian children by American citizens, though it was unclear if President Vladimir V. Putin would allow the ban to go forward. David M. Herszenhorn reports from Moscow.

While the European crisis has made the French aware of the need to modernize the economy, there are mixed signals on whether the government of Francois Hollande is willing to heed the advice. Liz Alderman reports from Paris.

Make some room in the boys' club: It is now mandatory to have female board members in every company and government agency in the United Arab Emirates, according to a new instruction from the U.A.E. government. Sara Hamdan reports from Dubai.

Prosecutors in Stuttgart said on Wednesday that they had charged two former Porsche executives with market manipulation in the carmaker's failed bid to take over Volkswagen several years ago. Melissa Eddy and Nicholas Kulish report from Berlin.

Health warnings should cover 75 percent of cigarette packs but governments should also have leeway to require plain packaging, the European Commission said Wednesday. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

ARTS Arab cinema is growing up. As the film festival season in the Gulf region drew to an end last Sunday in Dubai, filmmakers from the Arab world and industry-watchers hailed a new wave of indigenous films aimed at an audience accustomed to a mostly foreign blend of Hollywood and Bollywood movies with a dollop of Turkish soaps. Vinita Bharadwaj reports from Dubai.

SPORTS Roger Federer just completed a lucrative tour of South America-his first as a professional-and is more than glad he did. Christopher Clarey reports from Buenos Aires.

Home for the Holidays: When Your Native Country Is the One That Feels \'Foreign\'

Have you had a memorable holiday away from home? Tell us your stories. We'll post our favorites during these last weeks of 2012. Here is one:

HERZLIYA, Israel - Expats know the drill: the annual, biennial, or however frequent, visit to parents “back home.”

When I wrote an article nearly a decade ago bemoaning being single and having to go on vacation with my parents, my siblings and their families, I didn't realize how easy I had it. All I needed was a window seat on the long flight and I was content.

Time spent together during these family reunions was always great, if occasionally a bit overwhelming, and I put up with the angst of sometimes having to share a hotel room with young nieces or nephews, and the questions - whether posed or just hanging out there - of whether I would ever get married.

Nowadays, these trips entail jockeyin g for coveted bulkhead seats on the flight, holding a baby on my lap while eating, and waiting for my tray to be cleared before it gets dumped on my lap or on the floor, only for me to later step on a soggy chicken nugget.

I've become one of those annoying people who continually takes bags down from the overhead luggage compartment, searching for baby formula or the carry-on full of toys my wife insisted we bring, even though the kids always get showered with gifts from doting grandparents, aunts and uncles. And for the uber challenge: changing a diaper in the tight confines of an aircraft bathroom. Yes, there are folding diaper changing tables in there (take a look on your next flight), and you better think to close the toilet lid in case something falls or is thrown down when Murphy's Law ensures it will land in the toilet.

After what seems like an eternity, we land in New York, collect our luggage and rental car and we're on our way. While all is novel for my young kids, I've evidently lived overseas long enough that “different” has become the norm, and now my native country is the one that at times feels “foreign.”

My family of five descends on my parents' retirement community in a rental minivan that makes my minivan at home feel like a sub-compact (when Americans use the word “grand” in a product name, they really mean it!). We arrive to the pastoral setting of manicured lawns, colorful flower beds, an emerald green golf course, and residents who agonizingly drive the posted speed limit.

The first days are marred by jetlag, waking up at 4 A.M., trying not to make too much noise that might wake the grandparents while the kids watch cartoons or play with my childhood toys that my parents have saved for four decades!

We interrupt my parents' quiet breakfasts of what seems like two dozen pills of different shapes and colors with demands for caffeinated coffee, and obstacles like Cheerios thrown o n the floor from the borrowed high chair (we hear the familiar crunching noise each time someone steps on one, grinding it into powder). Despite the chaos, dad still manages to read The New York Times while mom copes with the five additional mouths to feed.

My six year old hijacks the television, watching hours of Nickelodeon programming; we log in to Web sites from home and in doing so plant cookies that leave foreign language advertisements popping up on their computer long after we're gone. We try not to cramp their style too much, remaining wary of the joke about guests being like fish: after three days in the house, they begin to stink.

But we are visiting for far more than three days; we're there for two weeks, squeezing two years of catching up into this short time. This is the opportunity for my parents to get to know grandchildren who know them mostly from conversations on Skype. They also get to see me in action as a parent, which always elicits a comment or two.

My parents forgo volunteering at the hospital, pool aerobics, playing mahjong and their entire routine. Instead it is two weeks of daily outings, hitting an amusement park, the zoo, a museum with dinosaur bones and a Gymboree. In the afternoons, we descend on the ice-cold community pool where children may be allowed, but toys, inflatables and having fun are all prohibited.

I enjoy some of mom's gooey brownies and other favorites, and they introduce me to exotic foods like sun-dried tomato hummus (incorrectly pronounced hum-iss), gourmet blue corn tortilla chips and black bean veggie burgers. My hungry family cleans out the refrigerator, so it's back to Costco to stock up. I find it humorous that they are regulars at a warehouse club that sells products in bulk since usually it is just the two of them.

For me, Costco is like Disney World: I wander around bright-eyed at all the amazing prices, wondering if I could fit 96 rolls of super-sof t toilet paper into my suitcase.

The time goes quickly, and before we know it we are packing our suitcases to go home. With mixed emotions - sadness as we bid farewell, and excitement for the return to friends, a new school year and familiar routines - we leave for our overseas home.

After those family get-togethers back when I was a bachelor, I would savor the tranquility of my unencumbered lifestyle. The roles have reversed; while we all cherish our time together, it is my parents who are probably now relishing the peace and quiet.

Gary Rashba has lived in Israel for 19 years. To bring him closer to his adopted country's history, he researched and wrote Holy Wars: 3000 Years of Battles in the Holy Land.