Plays generally are limited runs. You get things like 'The Mousetrap' or 'The Woman In Black', that run for yearsandyearsandyears, and sometimes something like 'The 39 Steps' or 'The History Boys' will crop up, that just refuses to go away (although the latter has finally gone to rest), but most plays only hang around for a few months before going elsewhere.
They're nowhere near as well-attended as musicals. While things like McKellen in 'King Lear' will sell out like crazy, as I fully expect Tennant in 'Hamlet' will do once the London booking opens properly, and the Donmar Warehouse and National Theatre operate under their own steam (I find that whatever I want to see at those two is what will sell out quickly), you'll be hard-pushed to find a play actually *in* the West End that has completely sold out. Including Radcliffe in 'Equus', Fiennes + Grieg + McTeer + Stott in 'God Of Carnage', Slater in 'Swimming With Sharks'. I think I even got my Stewart 'Macbeth' ticket surprisingly close to the date, and I went on a Saturday near the end of the run.
I chose to see 'Equus' because I love Shaffers, and I'm fascinated with the representation of horses onstage, and while there was a part of me that wanted to see how well Radcliffe dealt with it, despite being a big-ass Harry Potter fan, that was a very small part of me. Radcliffe wasn't exactly the pulling point for me, just a source of interest on the side of something that was otherwise fully interesting.
Updated On: 8/18/08 at 11:31 AM