London Spotlight: September 2006

Little girls in England are rejoicing — and some big girls, too. Wicked flies into the West End’s Apollo Victoria on September 7. Idina Menzel, who won a Tony Award as Elphaba, repeats the green-hued role in which her astonishing voice and special effects enable her to defy gravity. She’s joined in the Winnie Holzman-Stephen Schwartz tuner by Helen Dallimore as Glinda, Nigel Planer, Adam Garcia, and the always marvelous Miriam Margolyes.

If you’re looking for more song and dance, consider Daddy Cool (Shaftesbury Theatre, through January 21), based on the music of Boney M. the nom de disc for writer Frank Farian. He never clicked in the States, but his Euro-disco hits include “Daddy Cool” and “Baby Do You Wanna Bump.”

Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey, whose tenure as artistic director of the Old Vic hasn’t been a brilliant success, has cast himself as James Tyrone in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Moon for the Misbegotten (September 15-December 23). The actor is no stranger to O’Neill, having previously tackled The Iceman Cometh. Spacey’s supporting players include Eve Best, who’s built quite a reputation for herself here in recent years, and Colm Meaney.

Simon Russell Beale, one of England’s foremost actors, looks right for only a limited number of roles, and yet whatever he chooses to do becomes indisputably suited to him. If you need proof of that statement: Russell Beale will be on view in two — count ’em, two — National Theatre productions. While finishing his run in Bertolt Brecht’s Life of Galileo, he’s opening Ben Johnson’s The Alchemist (September 8-October 25, in repertory), alongside Alex Jennings, another of the anointed local theater regulars.
The theater glamour doesn’t stop there. Ian Richardson plays the wonderfully named Sir Epicure Mammon (that about fills you in on what the character’s about, doesn’t it?).

Elsewhere at the National, Conor McPherson — author of The Weir, Shining City — has been invited to make his bow at the popular Thames-side establishment with The Seafarer (September 20-October 31, in repertory). McPherson’s directing it, and Conleth Hill, one-half of the original Stones in His Pockets team, is part of an ensemble of five. More good news: Michael Frayn’s Donkey’s Years has had an extension at the Comedy (until December 16), and so has Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘N’ Roll at the Duke of York’s (until November 5).

At the Almeida in Islington, there is a revival of Michael Hastings’ Tom and Viv (September 12-November 4), with Will Keen and Francis O’Connor as T. S. Eliot and his troubled first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood. At another north London site, the Hampstead in Swiss Cottage, Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Everything is Illuminated has been adapted for the stage by Simon Block. (This is not to be confused with Liev Schreiber’s screen adaptation.) Included in the cast is the estimable Gemma Jones, whom television fans remember for her delightfully no-nonsense title portrayal in The Duchess of Duke Street. Even farther north at the Tricycle in Kilburn, Lynn Nottage’s Fabulation (Or the Re-Education of Undine) opens (September 9-October 14).

A hit over at The Tricycle, The 39 Steps moves to the Criterion Theatre in the West End (September 14-January 13). Four talented actors, including film star Catherine McCormack, Rupert Degas, Charles Edwards, and Simon Gregor, play 150 or so roles in an adaptation of John Buchan’s famous and fabulous thriller . Patrick Barlow has cobbled the script together from an idea by Nobby Dimon and Simon Corbie. Directing this intrepid undertaking is high-style actor Maria Aitken.

Finally, if you’ve been waiting for another production of Waiting for Godot to sink your teeth into, your wait is over. A one-week return (September 5-9) of Peter Hall’s fourth and most recent go at the 20th-century classic — which he first directed in 1955 — comes to the Royal Theatre at Bath. Alan Dobie is Estragon and James Laurenson is Vladimir in this must-see treatment.