Brits on Broadway

The tills of the West End may be alive with the sound of musicals new and old, but the Brits on Broadway are remarkably well represented at a time when theatre in New York is still suffering a delayed downturn from the after-effects of 9/11. It is indeed some indication of a renewed faith in Broadway, and a reborn interest in straight plays which we could do well to copy, that David Hare is about to première his The Vertical Hour (with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy, as directed by Sam Mendes) in New York rather than London, having recently triumphed there with his Iraq talkfest Stuff Happens. Additionally, Tom Stoppard’s epic three-play The Coast of Utopia, first seen four years ago at the National and dealing with the birth of Bolshevism, is about to open at the Lincoln Center with an all-star American cast headed by Ethan Hawke and Billy Crudup.