See the Play, Don’t Miss the Program

LONDON-One of the pleasures and privileges of theatergoing in London â€" in addition to those little wooden spoonlets that come with the interval ice cream - is the beauty of the printed theater program. Rather than the advertising-heavy publications of many cities, particularly New York, chock-full of fluffy profiles of the newest musical star and features on the favorite Thai restaurant of a chorus member of “Wicked,” a London theater program is often a quick study guide - a cheat sheet for the high-brow pop quiz of theater about to unfold.

The programs are often written by academics, playwrights or other experts, and are designed to educate beyond the glossy photos and credits of performers. Most theater programs in New York, Chicago and other theater cities, while free, contain only fluffy articles about that city’s theater scene with a few inserted pages specific to each show. In London most programs are all about the play you’re about to see. Granted, they cost anywhere from £2.50 to £4, or $3.80 to $6, but it’s an investment, not just a souvenir. The takeaway is a deeper understanding not just of the play but of some of Britain’s history, politics and culture.

A few current London shows are prime examples. The National Theatre’s production of James Graham’s “This House,” set in 1974, amid gridlock in Parliament as the Labor and the Tory whips battle for control amid an energy crisis, high inflation and record unemployment. The play, nearly three hours long, is a full-on immersion in the politics of Parliament that laid the groundwork for Margaret Thatcher’s anti-socialism agenda. It’s a dense, rapid-pace dissection of an era, and the program contains no less than three full-length articles of exposition, a glossary of political terms and a list of the members of Parliament who speak, if only for a few seconds. It’s a crash course for even the most politically informed, and certainly for a non-British tourist to better grasp the complicated ins and outs.

“The program is part of the experience of seeing the play,” said Lyn Haill, head of publications at the National Theatre.

“If people get into the habit of buying a program they start to realize that it’s a useful adjunct to seeing the play â€" and something to read on the way home.”

The West End revival of Harold Pinter’s 1971 masterwork “Old Times” has garnered attention for the clever way that the actresses Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Williams are alternating the roles of Kate and Anna. Pinter’s memory play about a love triangle (or is it) is dense with ambiguity, and the £4 program contains articles that guide viewers through 70 loaded minutes of Pinterese. The four essays in the program break it down thus: the power and unreliability of memory; excerpts from an autobiography of Pinter’s widow, Antonia Fraser, on her years with the hot-headed playwright; a psychologist’s analysis of monogamy and infidelity; and a brief history of the bohemian life in postwar London that sets the tone and time of the play. The program creates an ambience before the show casts its own spell.

The National Theatre’s West End transfer of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” - a critical and box-office hit - tells the story of a math genius, a teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome, who tries desperately to find the killer of a neighbor’s dog. The program includes an article written by Mark Haddon, the math-teaching author of the bestselling novel on which the play is based, as well as a profile of a youngster with Asperger’s Syndrome.

At Shakespeare’s Globe, where the program costs £4 and a floor ticket only £5 (which buys a spot standing near the stage, as was done 400 years ago), equal the cost of a movie in the West End, the printed programs also are specific to each play (about 12 are planned for this year’s season, which runs April 23 through mid-October). There are three or four articles on Elizabethan England, as well as the history of the Globe (and its rebuilding in the 1990s) and life in the theater in Shakespearean England. It’s like a historical mini-textbook in a classroom where the characters play it all out.

“Our programs also have an emphasis on the original playing conditions of the play and any evidence about its first production and publication,” said Nick Robins, head of periodicals for Shakespeare’s Globe. “We like to focus on his sources and what Shakespeare was reading when he was writing.”

For the National Theatre’s upcoming productions of “Othello” and Maxim Gorky’s rarely performed “Children of the Sun” in April, Ms. Haill said the historian Peter Holland will write, as he usually does for the National, about Shakespeare, while a British military adviser will write about how military life influences Shakespeare’s tragedy. The historian Andrew Upton will write about grappling with Gorky.

In The Shed, the National Theatre’s imposing, brick-red temporary theater that opens shortly while the Cottlesoe goes through a yearlong renovation, programs for the series of experimental plays will cost £1, in keeping with The Shed’s minimalist concept â€" and its attempt to lure younger audiences to the theater.

“These programs will have no advertising and are printed on uncoated, recycled paper,” Ms. Haill said. “It’s more immediate for younger audiences who probably aren’t used to buying programs.”

Even performers’ credits are refreshing. The National Theatre uses rehearsal shots instead of posed head shots for its performers.

And most performers in the London theater have radio credits.

Radio credits In a country where serial dramas and plays are still performed regularly on the radio, it’s another example of how a theater program reflects its society.

Do you buy programs when you go to the theater in London Which ones have you found particularly enlightening