STAGE

A London rehearsal room fills with British accents as actors break for lunch after trying for hours to sound as American as apple pie. It’s all in a day’s work at the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is reviving the classic 1939 American comedy “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, which opens at the Barbican Theater on Thursday and runs in repertory through Sept. 12. The latest revival marks the RSC directing debut of Broadway veteran Gene Saks, who is most often associated with the plays of Neil Simon. His staging of Simon’s farce, “Rumors,” is a current Broadway hit. Saks had only worked in London once before, restaging his Broadway musical hit “I Love My Wife” for the West End, when the RSC approached him. “I found this offer very flattering,” said Saks. “They said, ‘We wanted an American to do it and who knows more about American comedy than you do?’ I said, ‘Well, now I’ll have to do it.’ ”