'Billy Elliot,' which features three boys in the lead role, bows May 11.
"June is bustin' out all over," the lyric from "Carousel" famously exults. But the same sentiment could applyto this London legit season's month ofMay, which has an astonishing array of high-profile openings on tap, quite a few of which could end up wending their way to New York.
The mix includes two Oscar winners (Jim Broadbent, Kevin Spacey), as many Tony winners (Jennifer Ehle, Brian Dennehy), a TV star (David Schwimmer) and a Mexican film star (Gael Garcia Bernal).
"It's like the last weeks of April in New York," prior to the Tony nomination cut-off, observes Brit helmer Jonathan Kent, who would seem to be one of the few not folded into this May mix.
The National has for some time now been the city's predominant theatrical address. It's no surprise, then, that the month's attention will first be focused on Nicholas Hytner's Olivier auditorium staging of Shakespeare's two "Henry IV" plays, with Michael Gambon as Falstaff. The six-hour event opens back to back May 4.
So luxuriantly cast is the production -- Matthew Macfadyen, Mr. Darcy in the imminent film version of "Pride and Prejudice," is playing Prince Hal -- that Tony winner John Wood ("Travesties") is taking the relatively small role of Justice Shallow. But though the National has an ongoing first-look deal with Broadway impresarios Bill Haber and Bob Boyett, this one looks unlikely to cross the pond, not least because Lincoln Center Theater mounted its own "Henry IV," with Kevin Kline and Ethan Hawke, last season.
Conversely, "Theater of Blood," opening May 19 at the National's midsized Lyttelton, sounds ripe for eventual New York exposure, even if, as director and co-adaptor Phelim McDermott tells
Variety, "this is a big show." Broadbent ("Iris") inherits Vincent Price's 1973 screen role as a failed Shakespearean thesp who wreaks revenge on the theater critics who failed to acknowledge his greatness.
McDermott says it took the clout of the National to secure the rights to something his Improbable theater troupe has wanted to do for years: "I think the fact that it's happening here meant MGM took it seriously."
The production has a unique selling pointin a crowded field, says McDermott. "It's a show about theater, so it's sort of got its own angle as a thing for people to talk about. You know the critics are going to say something about a show that on some level is about them."
What, then, of its New York chances? "You don't start thinking, I'm doing this show so it transfers to Broadway," says McDermott, who co-directed and devised the current Off Broadway hit "Shockheaded Peter." "You create the work you create at the moment you're creating it. If it does end up being seen elsewhere, great."
One play very much eyeing New York, though where and when are still up for grabs, is "The Home Place," the latest from 76-year-old Brian Friel, who is widely acknowledged as Ireland's premiere dramatist. First comes its London bow, opening May 25 at the Comedy; Sonia Friedman Productions and Michael Colgan are the producers.
"Who is it tells me May is a bad time to open?" asks Colgan rhetorically, speaking from Dublin during the last week of the sellout Gate Theater run of the play.
"If we'd gone to London in autumn, it might well have been a better time, but then we might have had to recast. This way, when the company is already there, it helps me to get the Irish cast to go" to London. Amid a competitive landscape, the self-evident draws, says Colgan, are the play's English leading man, Tom Courtenay ("He's a great actor, and this is a smashing performance") and the reputation of the playwright: "A Friel play is an event."
So in its own way, presumably, is a Schwimmer play, at least judging by the crowds that swarmed to Matthew Perry a few summers ago when fellow "Friends" star came to the West End in "Sexual Perversity in Chicago."
Schwimmer headlines the world preem of the latest Neil LaBute play, "Some Girl(s)," which opens at the Gielgud the night before "The Home Place." Clare Lawrence, co-producer of the venture, says the TV name's marquee value means "David's appeal is broader than the traditional theatergoing crowd; my hope is he would draw any time of year."
As for Broadway? "We'll see how it goes," says Lawrence. "It's certainly a very New York kind of play: It's a play about modern society, about the fact that people don't communicate anymore." And that
other LaBute title, "This Is How It Goes," is itself arriving at the Donmar May 31 in a Moises Kaufman-helmed staging, starring 2004 Tony nominee Ben Chaplin ("The Retreat From Moscow"), entirely separate from the current Off Broadway one with Ben Stiller. Megan Dodds and "The Wire's" Idris Elba complete the London cast.
Nick Frankfort, Donmar exec producer, admits that "in an ideal world, we had talked to (Lawrence's Out of the Blue Company) about there being a bit more distance" between the two LaBute openings. At the same time, says Frankfort, "they want to work with us to ensure our show is a success, too. We all exist in parallel, and we all work with each other." (Translation: Expect lots of ink on LaBute in the British press.)
One show requiring no additional hype is the Almeida revival of Lorca's "Blood Wedding," helmed by Rufus Norris ("Festen"). The star is 2005 BAFTA nominee Bernal, who not long ago was just another student at London's Central School of Speech and Drama.
The seven-week run was "in effect sold out two weeks before rehearsals" (which began March 29), says Almeida exec director Neil Constable, "which is a wonderful situation to be in." Any extension is nearly impossible because of tight Almeida programming and Bernal's even tighter filming commitments.
The first seven weeks of Spacey in "The Philadelphia Story" at the Old Vic are already 75% sold, to the tune of $2 million .
The Philip Barry play, due on Broadway next spring though not necessarily with this cast, represents a chance for Spacey's critically beleaguered Vic to turn the corner. Its chances? "At least 'Story' is an American classic play, isn't it?" says co-producer Duncan Weldon. "It's possibly the sort of play Kevin should have started with rather than an obscure Dutch play," i.e. the Maria Goos drama "Cloaca."
Musicals devotees, in turn, have the $11 million "Billy Elliot" to look forward to, opening May 11 at the Apollo Victoria after six weeks of previews with three Billys alternating perfs in the title role. Reports of standing ovations at early previews, and a $6 million advance, bode well for a show whose regional specificity may make it tricky to export to New York.
And if that's not enough for May, there's always June: The Michael Grandage-helmed "Guys and Dolls," starring Ewan McGregor, opens at the Piccadilly June 1.
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