A Footlight to History

London theater is getting to be like an anti-Republican convention. There's Hollywood activist Tim Robbins' Iraq protest-play, Embedded , at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, where Bush and his Cabinet are portrayed as masked, jabbering clowns, and every joke is greeted with gales of supportive laughter. And for a chewier take on the subject, there's David Hare's Stuff Happens at the National Theatre, where lobby vendors sell books by Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky along with olive-drab T shirts bearing the show's title.

It's what the politicians might call twin-track theater — plays seeking to work as both entertainment and...