European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 9, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                London stage an abundance of riches by David Richards Washington Posl Isi twi a swigs of Ilo the British actor in the pub off Serif Hury Avenue allowed As How inc London theater i Puli i   Rovid Kiili in the  in the Imperial grandeur of the Liberal club the British Llie Ater critic pined of inc anti establishment Fomen tation no i i 1 %0s and 70s, and blamed thalcher ism for the   of menu aliveness he perceives.  n producer Michael Cotton who hat brought five shows to inc West find this year concedes pessimistically Ihal if i did l  my irus Iod band of Willers it would be very difficult to find physio  inn Nuy have their Points bul for one accustomed in inc slow  erosion of Broadway such complaints sound trifling. From inc american perspective London theater offers an abundance of riches. T his  has brought new works by  Hare Harold Rimer. Alan Aytek Burn and Michael Frayne. Shakespeare flourishes at the National theater of  Britain and he Royal Shaki Spears company inc mightiest of the country sub Slid cd Thi blurs and hat invaded commercial houses pm. Anil i 1 musicals Are currently on the boards if Broadway Isnoel for behind with 2, it s the British musicals i in phantom of the opera cars me Narf my girl Siml Ghl  and u s inc mates 1h.it Shine. , there is an equal abundance of trash in London. Win1" the could such drug Zauf pro users farce s is run Lor Tanir Wile  up what arc advertised As More than 2,400 Side splitting performances or drivel like the Mousetrap reach ill 3 anniversary Wilh no apparent end in sight in i Ondon critical disdain is not enough to Send a show packing Minlu Oli Livion Broadway s hit or miss syndrome Dot s not As yet have London in its stranglehold. A flawed Toul ruler Sling show can is ill survive and Prosper  strikes Hal British actor As a Stul tidied theater season is Al to impress an american wit hits Heady diversity. I f lit feel prices Are climbing i he re Well below Broadway s prevailing tariffs. The lop for musicals is Aboul i37 for plays about t2 3. Scats Are  available to All bul a a w blockbuster hits. Consequently healer going remains a plei durably  activity. A retell Survey by the society of West find Heaters in fill revealed that 43 percent of All ticket purchases Are made by customers walking up to the bos office on the Day of performance. It n hard to imagine Mountain language Harold Pinter s first play in four years being performed in the slates us a production sufficient unto itself. It lasts i . In the Lyttelton theater the play is set in a unnamed country where political repression and brutality arc the Rule. In the first scene a handful of women wailing outside ,1 Dank prison Are abused by officers and Lold thai their Mountain language has been outlawed in the capital. I i three scenes Hal follow take place within the prison. An elderly woman visiting her son is cowed Inlo silence by an overbearing guard. A Young wife inadvertently stumbles upon a  of torturers dragging away i lie hooded body of a prisoner who May be her husband. Finally Back in inc visitors room the elderly woman is informed that she now will be permitted la speak Mountain language until further  her son has since been badly beaten and bleeds Michael franc has turned to one Art plays and Short stones which he hot fashioned into a revue called the sneeze it theat Dowych theater from the ear. Traumatized she can Only stare at him. There is certainly nothing ambiguous about Mountain language which one British a fill has described As a Lew terrible photographs Wilh  however serving As his own director Pinter make his Points with stunning Economy and the cast headed by Michael Gambon one it London s hottest actors performs it with controlled intensity it is at the National theater As Well that David Hare s most recent drama the secret rat Ture is scoring a considerable Success although to the american sensibility it seems somewhat chillier than its la tic might indicate. Hare the author of plenty and the a i of the Wridt is a riling about two Sisters the officious Marion who is a minister in the Thatcher government and embodies it ". Materialistic values and moral expediency and Kobel a gentle selfless soul who runs a Small design company they Are brought together by the death of their father a two bit bookseller and the problem of what to do with their Sec Molher a vulgar alcoholic of roughly Ihler age. A longingly funny Al first in its contrast of the two women the play focuses in on Isobel who loses control of her business to her sister is betrayed by her trashy Stepmother and is hounded and eventually shot to death by a jealous Lover. Isobel i goodness a ominously embodied by actress i ill Baker inv los martyrdom in an age of self promotion and acquisitiveness. Whal the Oiler characters find so bewildering about her is merely an endless tense of honesty and a local absence of self cell redness. Bul something equivocal about the woman herself Call ii a thirst for mortification also collaborates in her destruction. Isobel is recklessly Good. Wilh tie secret a if Ore Hare has said he consciously set out to Buck a trend represented by such works As Glengarry Glen rot. Aunt Dun Ami Lemon in Ali s Lakom , which derive i hair Al loudly from immoral characters going to hell in it Han Baskel. In fashionably he said i have a heroine.". Maybe bul if his play unfolds As vigorously As it does it is because the heroine is besieged by characters who Are consumed by the bottle raging career ambitions and religious fundamentalism. We try to do business As Jesus would boasts Marion s husband this society refuses to acknowledge the powerless. Since Isabel s generosity is largely perceived As a kind of surrender she does t stand much of a Chance of surviving. While Hare cells an involving Story ii does t necessarily seem an inevitable on eyes things could happen this Way the great plays however convince you that things could. Happen no other Way. You feet or Isobel. But pcs pile Baker s appealing performance you also want to shake some smarts into Het. The production directed by Howard Davies has a fullness that helps combat the anecdotal aspects of the Pool though anal John Comber s sets uncluttered rooms it against inc foliage of what could be a 100-year-old Oak Are Beautiful. With three stages Al its disposition and an annual budget of s2&.5 million the National a Heater is perhaps Ihu. Grandest theatrical repertory company in the English speaking world raised to the Heights by paler halt who resigned in artistic director this All. Its fortunes arc now in the hands of Richard Eyre 45, promoted to the lop slow after seven years As an associate director whether this Means a shift to the Center As some critic. Here forecast remains to be seen. The Bill for the immediate months ahead is Eclectic but Laglall singly so. It includes John Osborne s adaptation of the father which brings All of August so Rundberg s snarling misogyny to the fore Eyre s own staging of Ben Jonson s Bartholomew fair and single spies a double Bill by Alan Bennett who has reworked his to play about Guy Burgess an English Nim. Abroad for the stage and written a companion piece about Art historian and spy Anthony Blunt to go with it. The new play by Michael Frayne comfortably berthed at the Aldwyck theater is Only partially his. The author of such hits As Bener sciors and horses off. Frayne is also the reigning English adapter of Chekhov not Only has he delivered himself of versions of Chekhov s four masterpieces he wrestled the unfinished Plata Nav into. Llie Agrical shape under the Guise of wild Honey. Having run out of full length plays Frayne has now turned to the one act plays and Short stories which he has. Fashioned into a Chekhov an revue called the sneeze the sketches that Chekhov intended for the stage theft a of tobacco the Bear Ami the proposal fare somewhat better than those that Frayne has crafted out of such Stork s ,1s drama for example in which an author is driven to murderous rage by a talentless woman with fierce literary ambitions who insists on Reading her wretched and endless manuscript to him. As for the play let called the 5netvtit reduces a Bli Tiant Story the death of Ivil servant to a Jokey pantomime. David Hart hit has a dramatic hit with the soc ref rep Luff at the National theater while Alan a Cobourn s  it pleasing audiences at the West and s vaudeville theater. Frayne is an intelligent Graceful will or however and if the material is slight it can be arg Rcd that Chekhov in a Minot key is worthier than most playwrights in a or form.1 the problems arise from the top heavy production which makes rather Loo much fuss Over whal Are. In essence skits. Set pieces Fly in and bul 1950s musical comedy style. A pianist who would do quite nicely in a silent movie House underscores the action and supernumerary is whose primary function seems to be to swell the ranks Scurry about with notable dispatch. Comic Rowan alkyl non who has a huge to following in. London stars in the production thereby guaranteeing it a healthy run. At the Hen pecked husband whose lecture on the evils of tobacco quickly degenerates into a Litany of. Personal woes to is affecting. The most fascinating of the new plays to my mind. Is hence Bra ref. By Law prolific Alan a Cobourn who has already hatched yet another work since this one his 12nd, surfaced last year in the theater he operates in Scarborough recast for a West end engagement at the vaudeville theater  now features Ian Mck Ellenas an alienated contemporary composer Ane Asher As the wife who walked out on him with their daughter in Low and a female robot nan30df by number if not name who is forever suffering computerised glitches which Render her service As a mechanical maid unpredictable 31 Best. Funny As it can be hencefcvwara1. Is a Cobourn s version of a clock Lewark Orange future where the microchips have run amok the streets belong to roving gangs and the populace barricades itself behind Metal doors Al night and Hopes the Security system holds. Jerome the composer. Is inc a plome of the self a entered artist who canal allies the lives of those around him for his Art. Bul this being the future he tapes their intimate revelations which he then feeds through a whole Battery of electronic ,.thcreby arriving at  As henceforward. Begins Jerome has decided to fight for the custody of his daughter. To prove to the social jul homilies that he is stable capable of a Long Lent commitment he s engaged an out of work actress Zoe to pose As his devoted Girlfriend. But Zoe bolls leaving him in a bind. His wife and the social worker Are about to pay their investigatory visit and he desperately needs to find a surrogate companion ust then nan300f clumps through the apartment. A tight goes on in his head could t a Little retuning transform the robot into an adoring male his plan does hot come off without a hitch in fact hitches prevail As nan300f undertakes the role of Lover and hostess Wilh a waxy smile a Giddy laugh a Jerky gait and a penchant left Over from her programmed past As a Nanny to Lake adults in hand and scrub their faces a Cobourn is arguably inc cute Yerusk Willei of comedies today and hence Fomo vis As adroit As anything he s. Done. \. For All thai hencrfpnvarrf., which the author has directed is dazzling exhilarating by inc atrial. Mckellen suggests a Boyish fascination with gadgetry and flashing lights Hal helps keep Jerome from being a total Joul. Asher comes unravelled Wilh great style As his wife and Serena Evans who looks not untie a British Colic hawn brings a lot of spunk to the role of the actress v. I Shakespeare of course. Is everywhere. By one count there have been six London productions Ihli year of the tempest alone. Al the Phoenix Derek Jacob is scheduled to open shortly As  to which he will play Unell january at which Point he moves on to Richard Iii. And the National theater s readying a Ham Al. Nowhere is the Bard better versed than a the barbican Center where inc Royal Shakespeare company hat mounted an exciting and Sharp willed production of a Lejure for measure. The play which to tolls in repertory with thro Esiteri the timing of the Shreve Atuf Howard Benton s the Churchill play is All about licentiousness Tow and order Public pities and private itches. In Short. It s All about Here and now. Accordingly director Nicholas Hytner has moved the action Forward to a present Day Vienna. 2 Tripet Magazine