In the good old days of the 1980s, the “British invasion” of Broadway meant ancient plays and rock operas—Shakespeare and Lloyd Webber. But neither writer is as active as he once was, and British directors who want to keep their hand in have had to turn to other material. At the moment, the current director of London’s Royal National Theatre, his predecessor, and his designated successor are represented on the New York stage by three new productions—respectively, Oklahoma!, The Cruci- ble, and The Sweet Smell Of Success. Another Briton, Terry Johnson, is in town with his adaptation of The Graduate, which—on the strength of the briefest, dimly-lit nude scene with Kathleen Turner—managed to rack up the biggest advance for a non-musical production in the history of the American theater. What all these properties have in common is that they’re American. Chances are these days that if you go ...

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