LONDON FOR THEATER LOVERS

“Theater is not a luxury of progress. It is integral to our identity as a nation,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair once said. This explains why I love to see plays in the sprawling English capital, why I take in at least one whenever I pass through the city, and why last month I spent a whole week glutting myself on London theater. For playgoing I prefer it to New York, because the English put their money where their mouth is, lavishing millions on the arts. Two great dramatic institutions are among the chief beneficiaries: the Royal National Theatre, led by Trevor Nunn, in a modern complex on the south bank of the River Thames; and the Royal Shakespeare Company, which spends part of every winter at the Barbican Center in the City of London under the artistic direction of Adrian Noble.

London’s commercial theaters are concentrated in the West End, an amorphous region between Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden. It may well be going the way of New York, because, as on Broadway, ticket prices are rising and serious drama struggles to survive. But the pace of change is slower in England. Currently, the best seat for the hit revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” at the Lyceum Theatre is priced at $63 (as compared with $85 for “Cabaret” in New York), and there seemed no dearth of serious drama in the West End in January, including Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love” and Conor McPherson’s “The Weir,” not to mention Michael Frayn’s heady new drama “Copenhagen” (which transferred to the West End shortly after I saw it at the National).

Then too, the history of the London stage is strikingly colorful and long, so virtually every playhouse in the West End has a story to tell about memorable first nights, ghosts, assassination attempts, hidden tunnels and tragic fires. Some, like the Royal Opera House, are being remodeled, while others, like the Haymarket, are preening in the wake of recent renovations.

That the acting and directing is more accomplished in London could be disputed. But you can’t argue the fact that an almost collegial spirit prevails. You can follow the work of tightly knit theater companies and watch theatrical dynasties unfold (as in Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen of Verona” at the RSC, directed by the son of Sir Peter Hall); see English movie stars on stage (like Cate Blanchett, appearing in David Hare’s “Plenty” this spring); and ponder why we in the U.S. don’t appreciate older actresses on the order of Dame Judi Dench.

Above all, the atmosphere is simply more cozy and convivial than in New York, never mind Los Angeles. London seems to make one willing to be more spontaneous about going to the theater. Curtain times are slightly earlier, so you don’t starve waiting for dinner when the play ends. And it’s easy to snag last-minute tickets at the Half Price Ticket Booth in Leicester Square, or at the box offices themselves. That’s how I got a seat several years ago for a Tom Stoppard play at the Aldwych Theatre only 45 minutes before curtain. Famished, I popped into the Aldwych Brasserie across the street, ordered a fixed-price dinner and easily convinced the waiter to let me return for the dessert course when the play was over.

If you go to London specifically for theater, you may not want to take last-minute chances about obtaining seats for the most popular shows. For this reason, I bought tickets before I left L.A. for “The Invention of Love,” “Oklahoma!” and Eduardo de Filippo’s “Filumena” (starring Judi Dench) from Albemarle of London, for $67, $79 and $67 respectively. Albemarle is a booking agency with an excellent Web site that includes excerpts of reviews and seating charts. But they charge a whopping 23% service fee. Once in London, I found I could have gotten a half-price ticket for a weeknight performance of “The Invention of Love” in Leicester Square. Still, the seats Albemarle reserved for me were all super, and on other nights I saved money by purchasing a $9 standing-room ticket for Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” at the Donmar Warehouse, and by standing in a long line outside the National to claim a prized $32 ticket for a sold-out performance of “Copenhagen.”

With theatrical immersion as my goal, I decided to stay in the West End. Hotels here are relatively rare and rooms are dear, but this put me right in the midst of the marquees and stage doors. I could walk to the theater, stopping afterward for a bite to eat.

Staying in the West End also taught me something about London, which I’d always considered endearing but dowdy. Now it’s become unquestionably cool, with a pulse of its own, hip-looking couples, trendy shops and salons, and chic, sleek restaurants and bars totally unlike the dartboard-and-meat-pie pubs of yore.

An L.A.-based theatrical agent friend recommended the Covent Garden Hotel on Monmouth Street, where I splurged on a $312 room for my first night in town. It lies a half block away from a cheerfully chaotic intersection called the Seven Dials, a hundred years ago the hub of London’s worst slum. Now the neighborhood is a delight, with pedestrian-only streets that end in surprises--like the bakery and New Age shops of a triangular square called Neal’s Yard--as well as curbside flower stalls, theaters and beckoning restaurants.

The small lobby of the hotel looks like a set for Moliere’s “Tartuffe,” with plush drapery framing the front desk, lots of wood and Oriental carpets, a gracefully curving staircase and a small restaurant, Brasserie Max, off to one side. Upstairs are parlors for hotel guests, a minuscule workout room and an “Honesty Bar,” where you help yourself and run your own tab. My second-floor chamber was small but handsome, with an embroidered bedspread and a mountain of pillows on the double bed, floor-to-ceiling plaid curtains and a luxurious mirrored bath.

I arrived on a foggy Friday afternoon, taking the new high-speed train from Heathrow Airport to Paddington Station ($18 for a 15-minute trip) and a taxi to the hotel. Lunch at the Brasserie Max was a wok-tossed prawn and chicken salad, followed by a brisk walk to the Duke of York’s Theatre on Lower St. Martin’s Lane. At the box office I bagged one of the last remaining tickets ($27) for the evening performance of “The Weir.”

In “My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor,” Sir Alec Guinness reveals himself to be not just a prince of a man, but a restaurant connoisseur. Which is why I decided to dine that night at The Ivy, a restaurant he mentions in the book. This well-known theatrical haunt near the Seven Dials has a hushed, distinguished air, faceted windows, flowers, Berenice Abbott photos on the walls and a wide-ranging menu. I ordered a hamburger and a martini, pleased when the waiter asked me what play I was seeing without being told I had a curtain to make. So I reached the theater with time to spare to read my program (you have to buy them in London, but they’re more literate and informative than American playbills).

J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan” opened in 1905 at the Duke of York’s, a small playhouse with, according to legend, a resident ghost. Now it’s the temporary home of the Royal Court, a company with a reputation for nurturing new playwrights (the company’s permanent home in Sloane Square is undergoing renovation). “The Weir,” directed by Ian Rickson, is a quiet, well-made play about four people exposing their vulnerabilities in an Irish pub. It moved and amused me, as it did the young American theater student taking copious notes at my side. It’s been so successful in London that it’s bound for New York in March.

Saturday was a big day, beginning with a run through the Embankment Gardens, where there’s a monument to Sir Arthur Sullivan (of operetta fame). After that I moved to Hazlitt’s, a quirky little hotel occupying three townhouses on Frith Street, in the heart of Soho. The 19th century English essayist William Hazlitt lived here, and I doubt the place has changed much since his time. I didn’t think my comfortably furnished but tiny single was worth $223, but a double I saw was roomier, with a beguiling canopied bed.

After checking in, I had a cappuccino and a sandwich at the Bar Italia down the street and toddled off to a matinee of “Filumena” at the Piccadilly Theatre, where Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” premiered in 1941. “Filumena,” on which the 1964 Italian film “Marriage Italian Style” was based, was surprisingly effective. And Dame Judi’s performance as an aging prostitute was as riveting, I imagined, as when she debuted playing Ophelia at the Old Vic 40 years ago.

Thrumming with the joy of it, I had dinner at Belgo Centraal, a dungeon of a restaurant across the street from the Donmar Warehouse. It was noisy and jammed, with waiters dressed like monks serving Belgian beer, kilo-size pots of steamed mussels, and fries. “Into the Woods” disappointed, even though I’m a Sondheim fan and had long wanted to see something at the Donmar, an influential nonprofit theater that has sent hits such as “The Blue Room” (with Nicole Kidman) to Broadway.

And so it went for the next five days: I ate, saw plays and formed opinions (half the fun of going to the theater, I think). I also sampled a third hotel in the area, the Fielding. A small, no-frills inn on Broad Court, it’s favored by French tourists and businessmen on a budget. There my fourth-floor walk-up room, at $157, was frumpy, with a double bed, two windows, a sink and adjoining chamberlette containing a toilet and coffin-like shower. But you can’t knock the location, within hailing distance of the shops and cafes of Covent Garden, which got a make-over some years ago in the style of Boston’s Faneuil Hall. You can still buy a nosegay from a flower girl there, watch street performers (called buskers), visit the Theatre Museum, tour the venerable old Drury Lane Theatre (with a tunnel that took King Charles II under Catherine Street to the apartments of actress Nell Gwyn) and take shelter from the rain beneath the portico of St. Paul’s Church--as Eliza Doolittle did on that fateful night when she met Professor Henry Higgins.

St. Paul’s is known as the Actor’s Church, and for me, standing under the portico wasn’t enough. So I attended the Sunday morning service, sitting in a battered pew beside stone memorials to Sirs Terence Rattigan, Noel Coward and Charles Chaplin. In the rear there’s a tablet to Vivien Leigh, who died in 1967. It bears these lines from Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra”: “Now boast thee death/In thy possession lies a lass unparalleled.”

I adored the fact that from the Fielding I could walk across Waterloo Bridge to the Royal National Theatre, where I took an instructive backstage tour and then followed the river to the newly replicated Globe Theatre, dark in winter, except for tours.

At the Royal National, you don’t need to rush through dinner as curtain time approaches because the three-theater complex contains a number of excellent restaurants. At one, the Terrace Cafe, I had smoked fish cakes and a glass of white wine before seeing “Copenhagen.” Michael Frayn’s drama about World War II-era atomic scientists Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, and the principle of uncertainty in physics and in life, left me intrigued but confounded.

So, on another night, did Tom Stoppard’s examination of poet A.E. Housman’s agonized soul in “The Invention of Love,” at the beautiful Haymarket Theatre. Compared to Frayn and Stoppard, “The Tempest” at the Royal Shakespeare Company seemed perfectly clear, if underwhelming. For sheer joy, stagecraft and performances, though, I preferred “Oklahoma!” It may be heretical, but I found the English version of this American classic superior to any of the four or five I’ve seen, with a sexy leading couple and a triple-threat Laurey who doesn’t need a double for the demanding dream sequence dancing.

In London, they say it hasn’t been a remarkable season. But I saw seven plays in six days--five of which were memorable. And four weeks later, I’m still humming “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.”

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GUIDEBOOK

Playing in London

Getting there: American, British Airways, United, Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand have nonstop flights between LAX and London’s Heathrow Airport. Lowest round-trip fare is $358 (until Wednesday, when the price rises to $480). Transportation to London is available on Airbus or the London Underground subway; the new Heathrow Express train links the airport to Paddington Station ($18, or $36 first class).

Where to stay: Rooms at the Covent Garden Hotel (U.S. telephone [800] 553-6674, or 011-44-171-806-1000, fax 011-44-171-806-1100) range from $313 to $455 (higher for suites). Hazlitt’s (tel. 011- 44-171-434-1771, fax 011-44- 171-439-1524) has rooms for $223 to $291 (suites higher). The Fielding Hotel (tel. 011- 44-171-836-8305, fax 011-44- 171-497-0064) charges $130 to $188 for standard rooms. Several well-known chains have hotels in the West End, among them Radisson (tel. [800] 333- 3333), Thistle (tel. [800] 847- 4358), Forte (tel. [800] 311-4394) and the Savoy Group (tel. [800] 63-SAVOY). One Aldwych (tel. 011-44-171-300-1000, fax 011-44-171-300-1001) is an upscale option at Aldwych and The Strand; rates start at $438.

Where to eat: At The Ivy (local tel. 836-4751), dinner for one, not including drinks and service, is $25 to $50 (reservations required). Mussels with fries at Belgo Centraal (tel. 813-2233) cost about $20 per person. The Terrace Cafe (tel. 452-3555) at the National Theatre serves pre-theater dinners; $20 to $40 per person (reservations advised).

Booking plays: Time Out magazine and the Evening Standard newspaper have good reviews and complete listings. Albemarle of London can book theater tickets from the U.S. (tel. 011-44-171- 637-9041, fax 011-44-171-631- 0375, Internet https://www.albemarlelondon.com). Another excellent source is Curtain Call (tel. 011-44-171- 409-2887, fax 011-44-171-409- 1879), an agency that books tickets and counsels groups and individuals on what plays to see. Membership costs about $150 a year, which includes a monthly newsletter. Two other established booking agencies are Global Tickets-Edward & Edwards (tel. 800- 223-6108) and Keith Prowse (tel. 800-669-8687).

(Note: “Filumena” closes Feb. 27. “Into the Woods” and “The Invention of Love” have closed.)

For more information: British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10176; tel. (800) 462-2748 or (212) 986- 2200, fax (212) 986-1188, Internet https://www.visitbritain.com.