European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 25, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                 Matt Wolf the associated press. There s a trans Atlantic fee to the British theater these clays As an unusually hefty lineup of american plays Heads for the London stage. This year s West end season has no fewer than four american shows that have opened or Are about to open with another four in the Nom profit or Quot fringe Quot sector. The first to open was the commercial London debut of Barbara Lebow s my Lovely. Shayna Maidel a play first seen at Atlanta s Academy theater in 1984. It is being presented at the  Dobson and Peter o Brien Well known in Britain for their work in to soap operas Star in  about a family divided by the holocaust and reunited in now York in 1946. A a a originally called a Shayna Maidel which is yiddish for Quot a pretty girl Quot the play was retitled my Lovely. Shayna Maidel to appease London theater owners wary of putting before the Public such an obviously ethnic title. Its run at a Quot fringe Quot theater last May carried Lebow s original title v a it a a the second american show to debut Oscar Hammerstein s Carmen Jones was the Spring s major Odening. It had two opening nights at the old Vic theater because two sets of principals were needed to perform Hammerstein s 1943 reworking of Georges Bizet s 1875 opera. In the musical the Story is transferred from steamy Spain to a Parachute factory in the american South Carmen is a factory employee not a cigarette girl and her beloved Don Jose is now Joe the a vol army Corporal. The show was made into Otto Preminger s 1954 movie with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte. To accommodate the demands of the score Quot this production of Carmen Jones uses two Carmens Wilhelmeni Wiggins Fernandez the diva of the movie diva and British performer Sharon Benson cats a and two Joes Damon Evans and Michael Austin. The third new play which opened april 10 at Whitehall is the 1940 curiosity Rick s bar Casablanca by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison it is the play that inspired one of the most beloved movies of All time a Casablanca. Another British soap actor Leslie Crantham has the unenviable task of filling Humphrey Bogart s shoes opposite Canadian performer Shelley Thompson in the Ingrid Bergman role. In june Peter Hall will stage Tennessee Williams 1951 play the Rose Tattoo with Jylie Walters educating Rita inheriting Anna Magnati s Academy award Vinning role As the earthy sicilian widow. The production will be at the playhouse theater. Hall had a major 1988 Success in London and then on Broadway directing Williams orpheus descending with Vanessa Redgrave. The adventurous warehouse theater in Croydon South London is mounting the Little known fairy tales of new York . Donleavy director Simon Callow stands beside a sign advertising Quot Carmen Jones Quot a 1943 musical by Oscar Hammerstein that is expected to be the Spring s biggest new show. Opening May 2. The play tells the Story of Cornelius Christian a soft spoken american whose English wife Dies on the boat from Britain to the United states. \ the Royal National theater where american plays Are a regular part of the yearly repertoire next month returns to Eugene o Neill s Long Day s journey into night. Timothy West and Prunella Scales real life husband and wife a act the tormented Tyrone couple in a play memorably performed by Laurence Olivier and Constance Cummings at the same theater in. 1971,. A a v. The Royal Shakespeare company has already opened its own american premiere two shakespearean actors by Richard Nelson the Chicago born author whose some americans abroad had its world premiere at the rec in 1988. The play is based on the True Story of rival actors one British and one american who performed different versions of Macbeth in new York in May 1849. London s current theater lineup is also notable for the absence of new  shows such As cats Les miserable the phantom of the opera and miss Saigon which All Are still running in London were preceded by years of hype but there is no blockbuster looming on the horizon this year. A even Carmen Jones is made expensive by its cast of 52, not by the heft of its hydraulics. Already this year one big musical the Stephen Schwarta John Caird children of Eden has flopped dope in by its own excesses. The acclaimed British debut of Stephen Sondheim s into the Ivo Ocie also closed quickly. London s hottest new musical is five Guys named Moe a Low budget High voltage revue. Powered by its performers not by spectacle. The show which won two Laurence Olivier awards a London s Tony earlier this month. Is a buoyant but Small scale tribute to american saxophonist and jazz composer Louis Jordan. The play running at the Lyric comes from the same producer Cameron Mackintosh who mounted phantom of the opera and miss Saigon. But its approximately $700,000 budget would barely pay for two weeks running costs of those two shows on Broadway. Stripes Magazine april 25, 1991