Ian McKellen as King Lear (Photo by Simon Farrell)

Oh, British theatre, you’ve bested your American counterparts again, and you likely don’t even know about it. I should explain.

In late October, a new streaming service called BroadwayHD came online, to a flurry of press attention, likening the offering to Netflix or Hulu for the stage. As the holiday season often affords the opportunity to seek out online entertainment, I finally had the opportunity to peruse the offerings on the nascent BroadwayHD. To my surprise, I found remarkably little US theatre, let alone material from the Great White Way.

As of now, the relatively limited repertory of the service is comprised overwhelmingly of BBC offerings, tilted towards Shakespeare. Now, there’s no question that the selection is choice, featuring esteemed actors such as Judi Dench, Michael Gambon, Juliet Stevenson, Ian McKellen, Anthony Hopkins and others, but the fact is, few of the shows on offer ever played Broadway.

Rifling through the categories of comedy, classics, drama and musicals yields a decidedly anglicised view of theatre. The category of musicals, which one would expect to be a strong suit, is the most American of sections, but also particularly thin, with only nine offerings, the most recent being Memphis and the oldest being Tintypes from 1980. One of the titles is the Bette Midler made-for-television Gypsy, which was never performed on stage.

That’s not to say there’s no value in the service, because I’m eager to explore some of these pieces – Daniel Craig in Copenhagen, anyone? But for now, it remains largely a US subscription-based version of BBC’s iPlayer with a cache of older titles. It also points out, once again, how behind US theatre is in adapting to the newly pervasive video reality, whether broadcast into movie theatres like NT Live is, or available on a mobile device.

I will always say that filmed theatre is not true theatre because it alters according to what the video camera finds. The live experience is unparalleled. But until all of the parties concerned – producers, writers, directors, actors, designers, craftspeople and crew – get together to hammer out an agreement that makes it possible for more US theatre to be recorded and distributed electronically, us Americans will be runners-up to our British colleagues (and soon our Canadian ones as well). Without that commitment, access to theatre will remain out of the reach of swathes of our population, for geographic and financial reasons.

Meanwhile, less attentive users of BroadwayHD will be left wondering why all of these ‘Broadway’ shows were performed with British accents.

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.

Macbeth. Twelfth Night. Richard III. Romeo and Juliet. No Man’s Land. Waiting For Godot. Betrayal. The Winslow Boy.

The syllabus for a university survey course in drama? No. Instead, it’s the roster of eight of the 16 titles scheduled to open on Broadway between now and the end of 2013.

To be sure, British plays, artists and productions haven’t ever been strangers to Broadway, but this preponderance of works – featuring actors such as Jude Law, Mark Rylance, Rachel Weisz, Daniel Craig, Anne-Marie Duff, Stephen Fry, Orlando Bloom, Roger Rees, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart – in the 40 theatres that comprise Broadway, all at the same time, is an embarrassment of riches. Add in concurrent Off-Broadway productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with David Harewood and Kathryn Hunter (opening the new Theatre for a New Audience space in Brooklyn) and Michael Gambon and Eileen Atkins in All That Fall, and it appears that Anglophilia is running rampant in the playhouses of New York.

Much of this is coincidence, since it’s not as if producers conspire on themes. Indeed, from a marketing standpoint, it’s not necessarily even a good idea, since the theatregoers most drawn to this work may have to face some tough buying decisions unless they have unlimited resources and time. Cultural tourists won’t even be able to fit all of these terrific sounding shows in, should they fly to the city for merely a long weekend.

But whether the productions are transfers from the UK or newly minted in America, as is the case with No Man’s Land, Romeo and Juliet, and Betrayal, the British imprimatur seems as if it’s a requirement this year, even if only in part. UK director David Leveaux is staging Romeo and Juliet with a North American cast capped by Bloom. US director Julie Taymor tapped Harewood and Hunter for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, her first project since the highly-publicised and contentious Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark (a tell-all book by her collaborator Glen Berger will be released just as Midsummer performances begin). Even the US classic The Glass Menagerie is being helmed by John Doyle. Only Classic Stage Company’s Romeo and Juliet, with Elizabeth Olsen and TR Knight, is wholly comprised of American artists, though their Romeo is Japan-born.

The English theatre can certainly take pride in this abundance of talent exported to American shores, and I look forward to each and every one of these shows enthusiastically. Indeed, I’ll pass on my annual autumn trip to London since I’ll need only take the subway and not British Airways.

But it does beg the question of whether classical work can succeed on Broadway without a UK connection. Are producers giving up on our best American actors and directors taking on British and Irish pieces without at least some of that heritage in the shows’ DNA? To be sure, not-for-profit companies may lean American overall (LCT’s Macbeth is Ethan Hawke), but has public television conditioned us to desire the “genuine” article? Great American plays appear on British stages frequently, ranging from A View From The Bridge to Fences to Clybourne Park, without the perpetual need to import Americans, let alone the cream of American talent, to make them work. Yet the power of UK casting appears to be such that even multiple Macbeths are deemed economically viable, with Alan Cumming having played virtually all of the roles on Broadway only months ago and Kenneth Branagh due at the Park Avenue Armory in June 2014.

I don’t like calling attention to national divisions when it comes to art, but the fall theatre season in New York simply can’t be overlooked. Despite the luxury of all of the great theatre on tap, the timing sends the message to US actors, theatre students, critics and audiences that when it comes to staging foreign classics, the talent exchange flows more strongly from west to east than in the other direction.

But looking on the bright side, perhaps this means we’ll soon enjoy one more benefit of the English stage, and be able to buy ice cream at the interval.

Ian McKellen (with Janet Suzman) in the 1981 film “Priest of Love,” which McKellen was promoting when this interview took place.

The following article was my first effort at writing journalism and the first celebrity interview I ever conducted; I reproduce it intact, save for addressing some non-existent copy editing and failed proofing. After trying to break into writing for the entertainment magazine at my university’s newspaper throughout my freshman year, I was given this assignment early in my sophomore year by the entertainment editor because, in his words, “We’ve been offered an interview with Ian McKellen and nobody here knows who he is.”  Obviously that is unimaginable now, but this was 1981, years before The Lord of The Rings and the X-Men films. Given the path of my theatrical career in the 30 years that followed, there’s tremendous irony in many of my subject’s comments in the first part of the interview; I had completely forgotten them. The thrill of this interview came full circle in 2010, when I recorded an hour-long podcast with Sir Ian in London, even referencing this interview during that conversation.

“As an actor I certainly learn as much from bad acting as I do from good acting, perhaps rather more. It’s easier to see what’s gone wrong when it’s bad,” muses Ian McKellen, discussing the Broadway season which he dominated with his performance in Amadeus. He pauses, thinking. “There must’ve been something I really enjoyed…I think it was a rather lean year and it’s difficult to recommend for most of the people. It seems as usual that as far as plays go, Off-Broadway is more productive than Broadway.” So how does McKellen react to the fame he garnered through his Best Actor in a Play Tony Award for Amadeus while aware of his lack of competition?

“Well, it’s very nice, isn’t it? I try not to believe it,” chuckles McKellen, “because it doesn’t really make any sense. The best dressed man, the most beautiful baby, the most glamorous grandmother…The Best Actor. There is such determination that through The Tony Awards, seen by 250 million people throughout the world, that New York should be advertising its pre-eminence in the show biz stakes. It is a sort of publicity event to publicize New York. And as New York’s fortunes have dipped in the past few years, so the Tonys’ have come up. When one understands that one is caught up in that, it’s easier to keep a sense of proportion.”

Countering this critical view, McKellen continues, “However, everyone is so pleased on your behalf, in England, in the press, the people I meet in the streets. Everyone in New York concerned with getting on seems to see Broadway and anyone who’s on Broadway as a symbol of their own success. It’s wonderful; they’re terribly pleased for you. They’re not envious, they just want to come shake your hand. I think it sort of confirms that they’re on the right lines, that the American Dream won’t die if you work hard enough and, with a bit of luck, you’ll make it.”

McKellen can afford such ideals. A six-year fixture in the Royal Shakespeare Company, a Broadway star in Amadeus and now a film star in Priest of Love (portraying novelist D.H. Lawrence), it would seem that McKellen could well be the next Olivier or Scofield. But he retains a certain humility, casually observing the newfound glitter in his life and the actions of others in the same situation.

“I was backstage with Elizabeth Taylor at The Tony Awards and she was drinking a glass of champagne. She was the only person there who was and I asked her for a sip and she said, ‘You’re going to share a glass with a loser?’ She felt she had lost. It really won’t do if you’re in the business.”

McKellen, coming from a mining town in northern England, began his love of theatre early, acting in amateur productions and going to all the shows he could. But English Lit at Cambridge interfered and McKellen avoided Drama out of insecurity. “I’d seen far too many good actors and I didn’t think I was good enough to be a pro. But one or two people said I was, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. And I’m still whirling.”

That whirling spun McKellen into the Royal Shakespeare Company and then into the London production of Bent, originating the role of Max, the homosexual concentration camp victim made famous in the U.S. by Richard Gere. From Bent he whirled in Amadeus. As Antonio Salieri, the embittered rival of Wolfgang Mozart, McKellen carved a theatrical figure which remains permanently etched on one’s memory. And yet, “It’s the kind of performance which at home I’ve really tried to stop giving,” he notes. Elaborating, McKellen compares the part to 19^th century British drama where “reality was more displayed. It was safe to say,” and he bellows, “’The bells, the bells, the bells!’ It was absolutely alright. You know, ‘God’s in his heaven and he’s an Englishman.’ Now we’re not quite so certain about things. It’s a bit more neurotic.” And McKellen prefers the latter style, “this other level of reality.”

This reality is easier to portray in films and that is McKellen’s new direction. Though no plans or contracts are on the horizon, he hopes to work more in movies, since Priest of Love is his first film in 13 years and his first starring role.

“It was a bit unnerving to get up each morning, touch up the beard, dye the hair red, put on the 1920s clothes, look in the mirror and say, ‘Well, good morning D.H. Lawrence.’ But it also feels quite good to walk onto a set and people refer to you as Lawrence rather than as Ian. It’s a bit of a compliment.”

Clearly enamored of the character of D.H. Lawrence, McKellen expresses many views on Lawrence’s life, his portrayal and his own life.

“I can understand all the constrictions which he felt in that small northern community. The puritanicalism which he kept throughout his life, which I’ve got inside of me, which I keep measuring myself up against.”

“There was another strand of his character that was very appealing to me, for me to be understandable of course, is that he loved acting. He loved the music hall, the red-nosed comics, vaudeville. He was obviously often aware of the effect he was having. He wasn’t the retired little actor.”

“There was evidence that Lawrence’s heterosexuality wasn’t as secure as he presented it. There were many young men in his life that he was obviously attracted by, not saying that he slept with them. I don’t think he ever admitted to himself that he could be a homosexual, but I think he was. Or maybe bisexual, but  not practicing.” More personally, he adds, “I don’t see much difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. They seem to be about the same. If you’re in love, you’re in love. If you’re having sex, you’re having sex.”

Despite his fame and brilliance, Ian McKellen remains personable and direct. In discussing Lawrence’s attraction to his wife and hers to him, he remarks, eyes sparkling, “Oh well, maybe they just liked fucking.”