London Spotlight: October 2006

Yoo-hoo, musical lovers! The National Theatre is importing Caroline, or Change (October 10-January 4), the Tony Kushner-Jeanine Tesori musical which floored most of the critics back in the U.S. Tonya Pinkins will repeat her award-winning performance as a housemaid trying to maintain her dignity and keep her children in order while washing-machines and dryers come to life around her. The title’s meaning, which becomes vividly clear as the musical unfolds, is another instance of librettist-lyricist Kushner’s brilliance.

The Fred Ebb-John Kander-Bob Fosse Chicago revival has run here almost as long as it has endured in Manhattan — and just like in New York, it’s gotten some serious stunt casting. Pop singer Ashlee Simpson has stepped into the shoes of murdering chorine Roxie Hart through October.

Meanwhile, some powers that be decided it’s time for Cabaret again. Rufus Norris’ smoking new production at the Lyric stars Anna Maxwell Martin, Sheila Hancock, James Dreyfus, and Michael Hayden in the Christopher Isherwood role. He’s the guy who made a name for himself here as a wiry, wired Billy Bigelow in the last Carousel re-view. He’s since played Isherwood’s version of himself in the Broadway Cabaret and was swell.

The dramatic event of the month is Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape delivered by Harold Pinter at the Royal Court (October 11-24). It’s a short monologue with very long staying power, and the actor/playwright, now in his 70’s (and a Nobel Prize-winner), should stick to the memory for quite some time.

Kim Cattrall scored something of a personal triumph a year or so ago when she appeared in Brian Clark’s Whose Life is It Anyway? Now the one-time Sex and the City star is headed back to the boards in a revival of David Mamet’s The Cryptogram at the Donmar Warehouse (October 12-November 25). It’s never been an easy play to grasp, but it’s Mamet and that means it has its rewards. Cattrall is joined by Douglas Henshall, who’s been impressing the locals repeatedly in the last few years.

The work of other American playwrights can be found here as well: Eric Bogosian’s Notes from Underground will be housed at Trafalgar Studios (October 10-November 4). Rosamund Pike, often on stages around these parts but better known as a James Bond girl, tries her hand at Alma Winemuller in director Adrian Noble’s production of Tenneesee Williams’ Summer and Smoke, which was written in 1948 but has never played the West End until now (October 12-February 7, 2007).

Theatre-goers who want more than fare calculated to lure the tourist trade ought to poke around at the Lyric Hammersmith, which isn’t that far an underground ride from Piccadilly. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, which dramatists frequently fiddle with, will play on these premises from October 1-28. It’s followed almost immediately by Mark Ravenhill’s pool (no water) (October 31-November 18). Ravenhill is one of the sock-’em-&-shock-’em playwrights, and an empty pool sounds like another of his potentially sinister settings.

Finally, if you want to head outside of London, go to Greenwich, where the Greenwich Theatre is mounting a revival of the Julian Slade/Dorothy Reynolds Salad Days (October 19-November 4). This is a musical written in 1954, which then ran for something over five years and became a household fave. Why not check to see whether it’s now a charming theater piece or still relevant to our less-salad-day times.