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Hilary Mantel's doorstop Tudor novels Wolf Hall and Bring Upthe Bodies have been adapted into hot-ticket plays in London, thanks to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Now we learn that they’re coming to Broadway in March. If you live here but keep tabs on British theater, it’s actually a bit of a golden age. There are more shows than ever crossing the pond, or else broadcasting via NT Live. This fall we have The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the U.S. premiere of Nick Payne’s Constellations. Spring will be busier, with Skylight, The Audience and now the Mantel double feature. What else should we put on our English-transfer wish list?
The National Theatre is an essential pilgrimage for anyone visiting London, so we’ve got a few from there. First, we’d love to see Simon Russell Beale’s King Lear: a great actor and a raved-about production. Perhaps 2011’s London Road, a much-praised docu-musical, would fit in perfectly at BAM. This House is James Morris’s period drama about Parliamentary wrangling in the 1970s; while that sounds like it’s strictly for the Anglophiles, we could use an injection of zesty Brit political theater. And while Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem hasn’t opened yet and details are practically nonexistent (believe me, I tried in my interview), that must come over.
Recently the Almeida had a hit with Mike Bartlett’s speculative royal drama Charles III, which imagined a future England with Prince Charles in the throne. It’s time that seasoned thespian Tim Pigott-Smith got some love on this side of the Atlantic.
Benedict Cumberbatch is poised to redefine one of Western drama’s greatest roles in Hamlet. The run at the Barbican, which begins next August, is already sold out. If his performance is as good as expected, not transferring would be a bloody tragedy.
We already blogged about a revival of The Crucible by the Old Vic, which sounds like an astounding take on a classic, and Richard Armitage’s dwarf star continues to rise.
Last year Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica was the talk of London: a three-hour-plus play of ideas about the political and cultural clash between capitalism-embracing China and imperial America. The London premiere was directed by Lyndsey Turner, whose brilliant Machinal made her my favorite new director. Bring it to us, producer people: We need more big, smart dramas about the world today.