Summer Plays for All Seasons Offered on the British Boards

After several years of domination by lavish Broadway-bound musicals, London is once again making sure the play’s the thing.

Summer visitors undeterred by a newly strengthened pound will discover the city’s typically eclectic array of shows.

First, Peter Shaffer’s “Lettice and Lovage” is the author’s self-described gift to leading lady Maggie Smith, who first worked with the playwright in the 1962 double bill “The Private Ear” and “The Public Eye.” In their new collaboration at the Globe Theatre, Smith plays Lettice Douffet, a lonely English tourist guide with an active imagination who strikes up an unlikely alliance with her stern employer, Lotte Schoen (Margaret Tyzack).

Scheduled for Broadway early next year, “Lettice and Lovage” remains after nine months the hottest non-musical ticket on the West End.

The West End’s class act of the season is Michael Blakemore’s star-studded production of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya.”

The production, at the Vaudeville Theatre through November, boasts a translation by Michael Frayn, author of the Broadway hits “Noises Off” and “Benefactors.” Two heavyweight actors, Michael Gambon and Jonathan Pryce, play Vanya and Astrov, alongside film actress Greta Scacchi (“White Mischief”) as the indolent Yelena.

Less well known is the diminutive Imelda Staunton, who appears as the lovesick Sonya. It is a dramatic change of pace from her work earlier this year as Dorothy in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage musical, “The Wizard of Oz.”

Dame Wendy Hiller, at 75, is back in the theater, this time playing a Southern widow in “Driving Miss Daisy” (Apollo). Alfred Uhry’s play, which won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for drama, received patronizing reviews here, but most applauded Dame Wendy’s willingness to perform a role that represents such a personal stretch.

Tom Stoppard’s “Hapgood” (Aldwych), an intellectual puzzle-play from the author of “The Real Thing,” brings together Felicity Kendal, Roger Rees and Nigel Hawthorne in a tale of espionage, where audience and actors frantically play detective to figure out what Stoppard is up to.

Long-running plays include “The Business of Murder” (Mayfair), with Richard Todd, now in its eighth year; Ray Cooney’s “Run for Your Wife” (Criterion), which has played more than 2,000 performances, and Christopher Hampton’s “Les Liaisons Dangereuses” (Ambassadors), a tale of sexual cunning and intrigue.

Long-running musicals are plentiful and include five shows that can also be seen on Broadway: “The Phantom of the Opera” (Her Majesty’s), now with Dave Willetts as the deformed Phantom; “Les Miserables” (Palace); “Cats” (New London); “42nd Street” (Drury Lane), and “Me and My Girl” (Adelphi).

Of the newer crop of musicals, only “Follies” (Shaftesbury), Stephen Sondheim’s landmark 1971 Broadway show in its belated London debut, has elicited much excitement. A poignant tale of two marriages gone sour, the musical now stars Millicent Martin, Julia McKenzie and Eartha Kitt.

As for Britain’s subsidized theater, a mediocre season at the National got a lift with the return to the repertory of “Cymbeline,” “The Winter’s Tale” and “The Tempest,” three Shakespeare plays which mark Peter Hall’s swan song after 15 years as the company’s artistic director.

Richard Eyre, Hall’s replacement, offers a sneak preview of his incoming regime with a revival of “The Changeling,” a 17th-Century tale of incest starring Miranda Richardson.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has two outstanding productions on view in London: “The Merchant of Venice,” with Antony Sher and “Fashion,” Doug Lucie’s acidly funny sideswipe at the British ad industry.

On the “fringe”--London’s version of off-Broadway--the Bush Theatre started an American season July 13 with Tony Kushner’s “A Bright Room Called Day.”

The Royal Court in Chelsea opens a revival of George Farquhar’s 1706 comedy “The Recruiting Officer” on July 26. On Aug. 20 comes a new play, “Our Country’s Good” by Timberlake Wertenbaker, about a group of Australian convicts performing a production of “The Recruiting Officer.” The two plays will then run in repertory through Oct. 8.