So who needs more possessions? The holidays afford the chance to give the gift of theatergoing, the kind of present that will be remembered (one hopes) throughout the year. With that in mind, what follows is a handful of London theater suggestions for the festive season.
Enjoy, and curtain up!
For parents (or grandparents)
“Singin’ in the Rain” at the Palace Theater should fit the bill, whether or not your grandparents (or parents, even) first saw the 1952 MGM film musical at the time of its release. Set against the backdrop of the uneasy transition in moviedom from silent pictures to the talkies, the Gene Kelly film has spawned multiple stage versions on both sides of the Atlantic, of which the director Jonathan Church’s current incarnation is by some measure the best of the three that I have seen.
Inheriting Kelly’s role as silent film star Don Lockwood, onetime Tony nominee Adam Cooper (“Swan Lake”) makes as charming and insouciant a leading man as you could wish for, and his own family must thrill at the larger-than-life facsimile of Mr. Cooper (sporting an umbrella, ‘natch) on view to passers-by in front of the playhouse. The production has time-honored songs (“Good Morning,” “Moses Supposes,” and the title number among them), nifty choreography from Andrew Wright and lashings of real rain. Go and get soaked! And I don’t just mean over that extra intermission gin and tonic.
Is that just too familiar a title, or you would you rather give the family a taste of next year’s likely Broadway biggie? In that case, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s buoyant and witty “Matilda” is a good bet, continuing strong in London at the Cambridge Theater even as its New York bow gets nearer. A child-oriented piece that possibly means even more to adults, Matthew Warchus’s production also offers a prime man-as-woman star turn, more on which below.
For lovers
“The Effect,” running in repertory at the National Theater’s Cottesloe auditorium through Feb. 23, represents an intriguing date-night theatrical prospect largely because it places the speedy bloom of passion at its feverishly pulsating heart. One frequently hears the term “meet cute” to describe (often sniffily) an adorable if unlikely impromptu meeting.
But initial concerns that this play’s Connie and Tristan might not rise above the shopworn cliché inherent in the above phrase are soon dispelled by the unexpected path forged by Lucy Prebble’s play, which lands its newfound couple in the world of pharmaceutical research where desire is not to be trusted. Is romance actually having its day, the play asks, or are such reactions merely drug-induced? Ms. Prebble seems to come down on something resembling the primacy of truly authentic feeling, but not before taking her audience on a wild emotional ride. What more could you ask from the theater – well, that and Billie Piper’s gorgeous portrayal of Connie, which ranks among the year’s best performances.
For students
You don’t have to be engaged in academia, of course, to enjoy the current Royal Court mainstage entry, “In the Republic of Happiness,” but it helps to be alive and alert to theatrical form when taking in the playwright Martin Crimp’s latest. And if students don’t fit that bill, who does? And as London’s – some would say the English-speaking theater’s – premier playhouse for new writing, the Court has the added appeal of the “cool” factor, and the further attractions of the downstairs café/bar don’t hurt, either.
Told across three scenes, the shifts between visual environments managed with characteristically easeful dazzle by the designer Miriam Buether, Mr. Crimp here anatomizes a world given over to self-obsession and self-improvement whereby our constant quest for happiness has resulted only in hollowing us out. Brainiacs in the house will enjoy making clear the connections that are implicit in writing that asks the audience to do some work and then pays off with an ending that recalls (in tone if not content) the finale to Robert Altman’s seminal film, “Nashville,” as a requiem for a benumbed society. Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Court, has done a tricky piece proud, and those who don’t walk out – as quite a few did at the performance I caught – will stay to cheer and possibly even book to see the show again.
For gender-benders
You thought cross-dressing was confined to the British tradition of the seasonal pantomime, which demands that a leggy young woman play the principal boy and usually casts a man of some seniority as the principal dame? (Ian McKellen, of all distinguished folk, filled that latter bill for two consecutive seasonal runs of “Aladdin” at the Old Vic.)
Pantos continue to proliferate on cue across the capital, but the so-called “legit” theater, too, seems to have gone cross-dressing mad. Consider for starters Miss Trunchbull that armor-plated harridan of a headmistress in “Matilda.” David Leonard is doing the honors now, while original leading man (um, woman?) Bertie Carvel readies for his New York debut. Not to be outdone are Mark Rylance and the cast of the all-male productions of “Twelfth Night” and “Richard III,” now at the Apollo Theater following sellout engagements at Shakespeare’s Globe last summer, and Simon Russell Beale in “Privates On Parade” at the Noel Coward Theater sporting baubles, bangles and sometimes not much at all as Terri Dennis, the campest – and most irresistible – of military captains.
Too many men, what about the women? Get in line for return tickets for Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female “Julius Caesar” at the Donmar: the London play that boasts by some measure the most swagger in town.
For someone you hope never to see again
“Viva Forever!”, at the Piccadilly Theater: Gift this one, scored to the back catalog of the Spice Girls, to someone from whom you hope to part company: trust me, they’ll never speak to you again.
