Brits back in fashion on the New York stage

NEW YORK, Apr 28 (Reuters) Julia Roberts and other Hollywood stars have grabbed the limelight in New York this theater season but critics have given a warmer welcome to another invasion -- the Brits on Broadway.

Last year's Tony-winning musical ''Monty Python's Spamalot'' proved Americans understand British humour, and this year has brought a crop of plays from London's West End.

''You could be forgiven for walking down Broadway and thinking you're in the West End,'' said Michael Riedel, theater critic for The New York Post.

''These plays are not being done for the tourists from Omaha who are in town to see 'The Lion King.''' While Broadway's biggest honors, the Tony Awards, are still to play for, nominations for the Outer Critics' Circle Awards announced on Sunday showed a clean sweep in the Broadway play category for productions that came by way of London.

The four nominees were ''Festen,'' ''The History Boys,'' ''The Lieutenant of Inishmore'' and ''Primo,'' actor Antony Sher's one-man show about holocaust survivor Primo Levi that played a short engagement in New York last year.

Yesterday The Drama Desk, another group of critics, included another British play, the off-Broadway ''Stuff Happens'' by David Hare, among its nominees for best play, which also included ''The History Boys'' and ''The Lieutenant of Inishmore.'' London-raised Irish writer Martin McDonagh's ''Inishmore'' was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in the bard's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon in 2001 and it won the 2003 Olivier Award for best new comedy in London in 2003.

Veteran British author Alan Bennett's ''The History Boys'' was also garlanded with awards in London and unlike some imports it arrived with its cast of British actors unchanged.

FROM HARRY POTTER TO THE THEATER Two actors best known to Americans from the ''Harry Potter'' movies are among the Britons in New York who have outshone big names such as Hollywood's best paid actress, Roberts, whose Broadway debut met with scathing reviews.

Richard Griffiths, who played Uncle Vernon in the films about the boy wizard, brings three decades of stage experience to play in ''The History Boys'' as a teacher in a boys school preparing his pupils for university and for life.

Miriam Margolyes, who played Professor Sprout in the second Harry Potter movie, has also won praise in Oscar Wilde's ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Starring in the play is Lynn Redgrave, back in town less then a year after starring in ''The Constant Wife'' on Broadway.

''The way I see it is that Americans move much better than we do, and we talk much better than they do,'' Margolyes said.

''The vocal control and training is very good in England but I don't think the English can dance or put over a musical the way Americans do,'' she said in an interview.

The full-scale import of the British cast for ''History Boys'' required special negotiations with Actors Equity which has strict rules on foreigners on Broadway and usually requires it to be part of a strict one-for-one exchange program.

''There were complaints by members who feel that we are giving away jobs,'' said Alan Eisenberg, executive director of the union.

Marquee stars such as Ralph Fiennes, who opens in ''Faith Healer'' on May 4, are not restricted by such rules but Riedel said producers often have little choice but to recast the rest of the show, often losing the ''alchemy'' of the original.

Riedel said Irish playwright Conor McPherson's ''Shining City,'' which opens on May 9 with an American cast, was one such case. ''I hope it doesn't fall victim to what happened to 'Festen,''' he said, referring to the dark family drama that won only mixed reviews, failing to match its London buzz.

Reuters SY VP0958