All Sizzle, No Soul

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Musicals don't have it easy, either. Since the British revolution wrought by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh in the 1980s saw shows like Cats run for decades and gross nearly $2 billion worldwide, production costs have soared and impresarios are under immense pressure to supply hits on a grand scale. Which means they want a guarantee — a big star or pop group or an old hit to revive. Both pioneers are currently preparing new shows. The Woman in White will see Lloyd Webber return to the gothic ground he mined so lucratively with Phantom of the Opera; his last musical cost $3 million. Mackintosh's Mary Poppins is likely to budget well above $10 million.

The same commercial pressures have forced New York City's Broadway to all but abandon any attempt to mount serious or edgy theater and concentrate instead on revivals and song-and-dance shows. The Americans rely on British theater to field-test new material (theater owners are competing to bring Springer to New York City) and supply bankable dramas. But American producers know that London has a built-in advantage when it comes to innovation: creativity and risk taking are encouraged by state subsidies. "Though the West End is ragged at the moment," says Bob Boyett, American producer of shows like The Crucible and Sweet Smell of Success, "the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company are shaping up as invaluable sources of great drama."

Unlike the West End, the NT and RSC can afford to take risks because they are heavily subsidized: the NT gets $23 million a year in government money, the RSC $21 million. Both attract high-profile sponsors, such as Accenture and Shell. Perhaps more important, both companies have energetic, innovative new artistic directors. Michael Boyd at the RSC and Nicholas Hytner at the NT are both at the end of their first season in the job, and are getting rave reviews for revitalizing the subsidized sector of British theater.

Traditionally, autumn is the time of year when you find good product, but there's very little — ANDRE PTASZYNSKI, theater executive

Hytner's first season was an almost unbroken string of popular and critical hits. There was Shakespeare's Henry V, in modern dress with echoes of Iraq, and with a bravura performance by Adrian Lester. There was Springer, and new playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah's murder story Elmina's Kitchen, a frank look at the mean streets of East London. Hytner's varied repertoire choices and discounted tickets found new audiences — and sold-out houses. He's currently deep in rehearsals for a two-show adaptation of Philip Pullman's cult novels His Dark Materials, opening in December. With a cast of more than 30 and a tale that leaps from the Arctic wastes all the way to heaven, it's suitably ambitious. To accustom young artists to large stages — a fear born from the greater financial security of studio theaters — Hytner has launched a training program for playwrights in larger rooms like the vast Olivier Theatre, so they could learn how to work within its dimensions. The National, he has said, must find "a vitality that reflects the vitality of the nation and the diversity and energy of its interlocking communities."

For his part, Boyd says he wants artistes to see the RSC as "somewhere they can be liberated." He spent his first season in the job reorganizing, planning and wooing back long-estranged RSC stars and seeking a permanent London base (to be announced in January). He also oversaw hits like The Taming of the Shrew. Coming soon: Judi Dench returns for the first time in over a decade for All's Well That Ends Well (playing from Dec. 3); Corin Redgrave will play King Lear from June; and Toby Stephens, who became famous with the company with his 1994 performance of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, will come back to play Hamlet in July, directed by Boyd. "Michael has given the RSC a new lease of life," says Stephens. "He can make it great again."

All of this vitality, of course, feeds life back into the West End. The NT's Springer opens this week at the Cambridge Theatre. It will be followed by other productions including Michael Frayn's new play Democracy and a revival of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers. Michael Grandage, head of Covent Garden's Donmar Warehouse, believes London is on the brink of a resurgence. "While the RSC and NT weren't at their best, artists started moving to regional theater, which had a renaissance," he explains. "With Nick and Michael poised for a golden era of their companies, this is the most exciting time I can remember." He hasn't forgotten the producer's golden rule: be an optimist.