Brits abroad: Bill Nighy holds forth in The Vertical Hour. Photograph: AP/Paul Kolnik
"Brits conquer Broadway". It's a headline newspapers keep in constant reserve. And it was last trotted out this spring when Alan Bennett's The History Boys walked off with a handful of Tony Awards. Stroll round Manhattan's theatre district right now, however, and you can't help but be astonished by the weight of the British presence.
At the Music Box on West 45th Street there is David Hare's new play, The Vertical Hour, featuring two British actors in Bill Nighy and Andrew Scott: as it's a Hare premiere it's caused a rush of British critics across the pond and I've reviewed it in today's paper.
But, on the opposite side of the street to the Hare, there is a revival of Simon Gray's Butley. Mosey on up to Lincoln Center and Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard's trilogy The Coast of Utopia, has just opened. Fancy a classic revival? Try Shaw's Heartbreak House. More in the mood for a musical? Take your pick from Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia, The Phantom of the Opera or Les Misérables.
Of course, the traffic is not all one-way. Look around the West End just now and you find a slew of American musicals: The Producers, Avenue Q, Wicked, Chicago etc. Revivals of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams have also been propping up Shaftesbury Avenue for years. It's a simple truth that Broadway and the West End are increasingly mirror images of each other.
Still, if the Brits are slightly bigger on Broadway than the Yanks are in the West End, there is a rational explanation: we have a strong subsidised structure that fosters talent. Hare and Stoppard are providing the only serious drama on Broadway this autumn. And where have they spent the bulk of their recent careers? At the National Theatre. Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon and Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll will also eventually head to Broadway. And where will they have come from? The Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse. Straight drama on Broadway is being kept alive largely by the British taxpayer.
America, of course, has its own non-profit theatre; for me, that is where the real native talent lies. Two summers ago I visited Chicago and was overwhelmed by the scale of activity I found: at theatres like Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens and the Goodman, I saw work of the highest quality. In Minneapolis, where the Guthrie Theatre has just opened an apparently magnificent new three-theatre complex, I saw a production of Arthur Miller's Resurrection Blues that knocked spots off the recent shambles at the Old Vic.
In our ignorance, we assume that Broadway is the beating heart of American theatre. Believe me, it is not. If you want to see the real American theatre, travel to Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Hartford, Ashland or Louisville. Broadway is simply a gaudy shop-window. And it is high time we reported this simple fact instead of chauvinistically bragging about the Brits on Broadway.
