London Theater Puts New York in the Shadows

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'THERE is still excitement in the air there," Arthur Miller recently stated publicly, when asked why he was premiering his first major work in more than a decade in London rather than New York.

For years America's greatest living playwright has been decrying the decline of what he and many of his theater colleagues see as a destructive combination of forces on Broadway: soaring production costs that lead to commercial sensibilities reigning supreme; TV-weened audiences with decreasing attention spans; and the tyranny of a single newspaper critic who can make or break a show overnight.

London's West End theater climate is, to be sure, different. While there are …