Star-Telegram | 12/17/2006 | London's a stage: A traveler's guide

In the fall of 1994, when I was a junior in college, I signed up to spend a semester in London studying history. Ostensibly I was taking three courses at University College London and pursuing some sort of independent research project.

I ended up barely attending classes and scoring the lowest grades of my college career. That's because, within a week of my arrival in the United Kingdom, I discovered the London theater scene.
Having grown up in New York City, it's not as if I were new to the experience of live theater.

But London seemed to stand far apart from Broadway. For one thing, there was its amazing mixture of highbrow and lowbrow offerings. You could spend one evening watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's roller skaters zipping past you in Starlight Express and the next night soaking up the complexities of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass.

For another, there was the opportunity to regularly see both acting legends (Judi Dench and Derek Jacobi in Chekhov's The Seagull, Maggie Smith in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women) and rising stars (a then-unknown Rachel Weisz in Noel Coward's Design for Living).
Most exciting, though, was the sense of discovery around every corner: a notorious re-interpretation of The Merchant of Venice, set against the backdrop of the Rodney King trials, directed by bad-boy theater impresario Peter Sellars; the world premiere of Tom Stoppard's masterpiece Arcadia; a production of Brad Fraser's Poor Superman, in a little theater off the West End, where the actors got very naked and smoked what seemed like real marijuana on the stage. This brand of electricity -- indeed, the sense that the cops might burst into the place and shut it down at any moment -- has never seemed as readily available in New York.

I saw more than 40 shows during my 16 weeks there -- and I've been eager to return ever since. That's why this year I decided to travel to London for a week's worth of shows. Over seven days I saw nine productions -- my own personal theater festival.

This isn't the sort of trip that should be undertaken lightly: It requires careful scheduling and a hearty constitution, especially if you hope to get to each theater on time and stay awake throughout each show. It's also not a trip that should be undertaken with a light pocketbook: In 1994, with a favorable exchange rate and access to last-minute student discounts, I saw plays for little more than the price of a movie ticket. In 2006, ticket prices were almost identical to, if not even more expensive than, those of Broadway shows.

But if you're a fan of the theater -- and especially if you've been to London and seen all the major sights -- I can't think of a more gratifyingly self-indulgent way to spend a week. Here's a tip sheet on how to plan your ideal London theater-going trip. Just don't forget to pack your credit card and a bottle of NoDoz.

The best thing about the London theater scene is that there's a show unfolding almost every single afternoon and evening. Most productions in the West End (London's central theater-going district) have evening performances Monday through Saturday, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. But a few productions replace the Wednesday matinee with a Tuesday or Thursday matinee; and a few shows that tend to appeal to younger audiences -- such as the recently opened musical version of Dirty Dancing -- offer an early-evening performance on Friday.

That means that, in theory, you could catch 12 performances in seven days -- which is probably more ambitious than even the most inveterate theater junkie is willing to aim for. Just understand all your options so you don't squander any potential theater-going slots.
For instance, I didn't know there was a Sunday matinee of Tom Stoppard's latest, Rock 'N' Roll, until after I purchased a ticket to the Saturday-evening performance.

I ended up with nothing to see on Sunday afternoon (the only other option was the long-running The Lion King). Meanwhile, there were any number of shows I had to pass up -- including a well-reviewed revival of Bent starring Alan Cumming -- that I might have instead seen on Saturday evening.
Obviously the further in advance you book, the more likely you are to see the shows you want.

It's easiest to use online theater-booking sites such as ticketmaster.co.uk.

-- though a number of individual theaters, including the Donmar Warehouse, the Almeida and the National, have their own sites where you can avoid extra booking fees.
For less-popular shows, you can find same-day, half-price tickets at the official "TKTS" booth in Leicester Square (make sure you're at the official booth, directly across from the Odeon West End cinema, and not one of the numerous ticket brokers that proclaim themselves the "Official" Half Price Ticket). A few shows, including Dirty Dancing, also offer same-day tickets that are released every morning at the theater -- though you likely will have to line up early to snag one.

3. Choose by the theater, not by the show
If you arrive in London and make it only to most well-known blockbuster titles -- the musical adaptation of Billy Elliot, say; or Cameron Mackintosh's new version of Mary Poppins -- you might very well see some terrific theater. But you'll also be missing out on the most vibrant aspect of the city's theater scene.

Buy a ticket to whatever is playing at the Donmar Warehouse and thank me later. This is a 250-seat theater in London's tony Covent Garden. In the 1990s, Sam Mendes' Tony-winning production of Cabaret originated here.

It's also where Nicole Kidman first famously appeared in the buff in The Blue Room. Most recently, the Donmar showcased the world premiere of Frost/Nixon -- a widely acclaimed drama that Ron Howard is planning to make into a movie. When I was there in October, I saw Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall in a revival of David Mamet's unnerving 1994 play The Cryptogram.

I was sitting in the front row, though from just about any seat in the house you would be able to see the actors' spittle and sweat. It feels like you're watching theater unfold in your living room.
The other don't-miss theater in London is the National, which comprises three theaters of varying sizes, in the South Bank arts complex, just south of the River Thames.

This is London's nationally funded theater, where five or six shows play in repertory. It's almost always an embarrassment of riches: The week I was there I caught Alex Jennings (who plays Prince Charles in The Queen) and Lesley Manville (a stalwart of director Mike Leigh's films) in a revival of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist in the larger Olivier Theatre, and the world premiere of Irish playwright Conor McPherson's latest, The Seafarer, in the tiny Cottesloe Theatre.
As off-Broadway is to Broadway, so is off-West End to the West End -- and it's at some of these smaller, lesser-known theaters, sometimes far off the beaten track, where you'll likely stumble upon a few treasures.

One theater to remember is the Almeida, in the increasingly yuppified Islington section of London. Much like the Donmar Warehouse, it's a small space where productions that regularly travel to Broadway often originate When I was there, I saw Frances O'Connor (A.I.

, Mansfield Park) deliver a stunning performance in a revival of Michael Hasting's Tom and Viv, about the tortured relationship between T.S. Eliot and his mentally unstable wife.

A bit farther afield, and even more cutting edge, is the Hampstead Theatre, just across from the Swiss Cottage tube stop in northwest London. I wasn't able to make it there during my most recent visit, but this was where I saw the aforementioned, button-pushing Poor Superman in 1994, as well as Slavs!, Tony Kushner's underappreciated, mostly forgotten follow-up to Angels in America.

It would be criminal to travel to the United Kingdom and not attend at least one Shakespeare play. But with the exception of the Globe Theatre -- the Royal Shakespeare Company's home in London -- Shakespeare isn't always widely available. (In fact, when I was in town, the RSC was putting on Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales at the Globe).

In which case, consider a trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of William Shakespeare and home to the RSC. The company usually runs four or five shows in repertory, a mixture of Shakespeare, classical drama and (occasionally) a newfangled experiment, such as this season's hot ticket, Merry Wives -- The Musical, based on The Merry Wives of Windsor and starring Judi Dench. (It runs through Feb.

10.)
I didn't make it to Stratford during my most recent visit, but it's a simple three-hour train ride from central London, and there are lodging options for every budget range.
Because theater-going can be expensive (top seats at a West End show can easily run north of $100), you want to make sure you're going to see something worthwhile.

You will no doubt be tempted by big-name titles and Hollywood stars. For instance, when I found out Kevin Spacey would be appearing in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, I immediately purchased a ticket without even glancing at the reviews. The production was perfectly adequate, but Spacey's performance felt overwrought and littered with familiar Spacey mannerisms.

I was glad to be able to say I saw the production -- it will travel to Broadway in the spring -- but I would have been wiser to scour the local reviews a bit more diligently.
The weekly magazine Time Out London offers a useful guide, including mini-reviews of nearly every show in town. All the London daily newspapers employ at least one drama critic, so a Google search should turn up at least a half-dozen reviews of whatever production you're thinking of seeing.

If you're lucky enough to make it to London before the end of January, buy a ticket to The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, the best play I saw while I was in town. Like McPherson's other plays, including The Weir and Shining City, it's about a group of dissolute, drunken Irishmen facing down unexpected crises. But this one -- in which four oddballs enter into a poker game with the devil himself -- is a finely calibrated mixture of comedy, melodrama and old-fashioned morality play.

And though it's almost certain to make it across the Atlantic in the coming years, I can't imagine it will ever find a more perfect venue than the National's intimate Cottesloe Theatre.
The National's other major offering this fall is a revival of Emile Zola's Therese Raquin, which opened just after I left town and has garnered across-the-board rave reviews. Looking ahead to the spring, the most intriguing offering is the world premiere of Nicholas Wright's The Reporter, based on the life and suicide of a famous 1970s BBC correspondent named James Mossman.

If musicals are your thing, you have plenty of options -- nearly a dozen new productions opened this fall, including revivals of Cabaret, Porgy and Bess, Evita and The Sound of Music.
Having missed Wicked in its New York and Dallas incarnations, I went to the recently launched London production, mainly because I wanted to see Idina Menzel reprise her Tony-winning role as Wicked Witch of the West. (She's scheduled to remain with the production through the spring.

) Alas, Menzel mostly seemed to be going through the motions, and the show itself was a bit too noisy and chaotic for my tastes.
Much more to my liking was Billy Elliot, a musical version of the excellent 2000 film about a working-class boy who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. It's little wonder this one has been regularly selling out since it opened two years ago: It's sweet, touching and surprisingly political -- and it features perhaps the strongest music Sir Elton John has written in the last two decades.

(A Broadway production is expected to premiere in early 2008.)
As for the smaller theaters, you've already missed your chance to see The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse, but the same theater is serving up Don Juan in Soho, a modern-day update of the Moliere classic, written by Patrick Marber (Closer) and starring Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill). It runs through early February.

The show I most wish I could get back to town for is There Came a Gypsy Riding, by Frank McGuinness, which opens at the Almeida in early January and stars Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) and Eileen Atkins (Gosford Park).
If you're traveling with a teenage girl or a gay man, you will probably be obliged to see the musical version of Dirty Dancing. The reviews, predictably enough, were dreadful, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone; it was the one show on my must-see list that I couldn't find a ticket for.

Expect similar mob scenes in June, when the hotly anticipated musical version of The Lord of the Rings opens, after a much-maligned tryout in Toronto last year.