Theater: London's Dry Season

Despite starry revivals, West End writing is wilting

Broadway has long spoken in English accents, at first because audiences admired Britain's elegant actors and urbane playwrights, then because producers came to prefer works that had been pretested in London, where costs are cheaper and audiences perhaps more forgiving. In the early '80s, dramas by Tom Stoppard and Peter Shaffer dominated the Tony Awards for plays; while in the past few years, Trevor Nunn's staging and Andrew Lloyd Webber's melodies have provided the very definition of hit musicals. This year, though, a clog is developing in the transatlantic pipeline. While London offers the customary array of starry revivals, there are...

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