LONDON â€" How soon is too soon?
The question hovers over any theatrical community that folds the classics into its overall output, or at least makes the past part of its present. But as someone who travels relatively frequently between New York and London, I remain struck by differing attitudes in the two theater capitals toward this very topic. “Not again,†I more often than not hear American friends and colleagues remarking, as when a certain title that smacks of overfamiliarity comes their way â€" “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof,†most recently, to pick just one title much-seen on Broadway lately.
But the same conveyer belt of plays in performance causes barely a ripple in London. If memory serves, I seem to recall attending five different productions of “The Tempest†at the very end of the 1980s, and I can report as fact that last year I saw both “The Taming of the Shrew†and “Henry V†three times (four in the case of the history play if one adds in the actor Tom Hiddleston’s hugely charismatic take on the title role on British television).
In Britain, of course, Shakespeare is common currency, as is to be expected from a country that can field simultaneously the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare’s Globe, without an apparent diminution of interest in the output of either. It helps, of course, that the Royal Shakespeare Company is based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, whereas the Globe, while sending shows on tour, occupies Thames-side pride of place next to the Tate Modern.
Playgoers here, far from being put off by an overabundance of a certain title, can in some ways be seen to collect experiences of a certain show. This extends not just to Shakespeare but across the spectrum. There’s been a major London production of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times†more or less once a decade since its 1971 premiere â€" the most recent one was this past winter, with Kristin Scott Thomas, Lia Williams, and Rufus Sewell â€" and Ms. Scott Thomas, in fact, made her West End stage debut in a 2003 production of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters†that predated by several months a National Theatre reappraisal of the very same play. That one, directed by Katie Mitchell, had Eve Best in the role of Masha that had been taken a theatrical heartbeat before by Ms. Scott Thomas.
With that in mind, it’s a small wonder that the twice Tony-nominated Ms. Best was sounding relatively sanguine in a recent interview on the topic of her imminent directing debut with “Macbeth,†a play much on Britons’ lips at the moment: James McAvoy recently finished a sellout West End run in the title role, garnering an Olivier nomination in the process, while Kenneth Branagh will essay the same role opening in Manchester in early July. Ms. Best’s production for Shakespeare’s Globe has its opening the very same week as the Manchester one, but that’s just the way things are, she said. (And the two cities are, of course, several hours apart by train.)
“What’s lovely about this play â€" and all Shakespeare plays, obviously â€" is that they are so magnificently and eminently flexible that they can encompass six or eight or 10 productions all going on at the same time,†said Ms. Best, “all equally fascinating, all equally interesting.†Besides, Ms. Best as an actress has been here before, not just with Chekhov in 2003 but a few summers ago with the Bard. In 2011, she opened as Beatrice in a Globe “Much Ado About Nothing†a scant six days before the popular comedienne Catherine Tate took on the same role in the West End in a totally different production. Happy news: Both productions played to capacity (though the Globe one, it must be said, was infinitely better.)
The Tony-winning director Michael Grandage (“Redâ€) has two Shakespeare plays planned as part of his ongoing West End tenancy at the Noel Coward Theatre, which on June 1 concluded the world premiere of John Logan’s “Peter and Alice,†starring Ben Whishaw and Judi Dench. In the fall, Mr. Grandage will open “A Midsummer Night’s Dream†â€" a play that just opened at (where else?) the Globe â€" to be followed by his former Hamlet, Jude Law, taking on “Henry V,†local memories of the recent spate of productions of that play no doubt fresh in theater people’s minds.
The point, Mr. Grandage said one recent day, is that the array of productions of the same work is in its own way “completely liberating,†not least because, in his view, “audiences don’t have any issue with seeing something that for many of them will be a new play.†As regards Shakespeare, he said, “we have a 450-year-old history of repeating these plays but I don’t think they’re ever thought of as repeats, and we tend not to use the word ‘revival.’ The public has got a different mindset about the history of it all.â€
Mr. Grandage recently revisited a title himself, opening his West End season this past December with “Privates on Parade,†the Peter Nichols play-with-music that he had previously directed at the (far smaller) Donmar Warehouse late in 2001. But the recent go-round, the director said, was “a completely different production that arose out of a completely different set of circumstances; we came at it like it was a new play again.†(Both, incidentally, got excellent reviews.)
What then of a New York theater season to come that will see major revivals of “Betrayal†and “The Real Thing,†two English titles not exactly unknown around Broadway, as well as a “Waiting For Godot,†with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, that comes less than five years after the last Broadway “Godot,†which starred Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane?
Well, major symphonies and ballets are constantly revisited, so why not plays? Those who choose to get too exercised about it should consider the following: If this were London, these “Godot†plays might well have opened not within five years of one another but five days.
