When the Royal Shakespeare Company's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby shifted from London to Broadway in September 1981, theatergoers gasped at the record-setting $100 ticket price and bottom-numbing 8 1/2-hr. length. Co-Producer Bernard Jacobs of the Shubert Organization described seeing both halves in one day as "participating with the actors in a survival experience." Nonetheless, Nickleby's 14-week run became a sellout, playing to almost 55,000 people and leaving countless others feeling they had missed a triumph never to be repeated. ,
That gloomy prediction has proved premature. The R.S.C. returned Nickleby to its repertory last Christmas, albeit with an...
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