CB and I saw Christmas is Miles Away at the Connelly Theater. It’s a coming of age drama set in Manchester by British playwright Chole Moss. She’s all the rage and a Bright Young Thing.

The Connelly is small, 19th century theater on East 4th Street off of Avenue A. It appears to be an old Jewish vaudeville house. It’s an intimate space with peeling paint, a set of oversized comedy and tragedy masks above the stage and great sightlines.

Typically, I try to see a show before it’s reviewed. I am easily swayed and it’s better if I walk into a show cold without any preconceived notions. I had my eye on Christmas is Miles Away but didn’t see it until after Time Out New York gave it a 5-star review and the New York Times called it a “well-observed and ultimately engaging three-hander.”

Five fucking stars! Wouldn’t you expect a life-altering experience after a review like that!? Well, it was good. The story is believable and the young actors are all credible, although I’m not entirely convinced that the Manchester accents were accurate. How the hell would I know?

But I’m not sure I concur with all the fuss. CB said that he thought the first half was compelling but that it lost a little steam as it played out. I, on the other hand, thought it had a weak first act but then became more compelling as it drew to its conclusion.

Same planet, different worlds.

You would think that seven hours of theater would be too much to tolerate but if the reviews are to be believed, it’s not enough.

CB and I saw The Norman Conquests at the Circle in the Square on Broadway. It’s an Old Vic comedy from London. It comprises three interlocking plays; Table Manners, Living Together and Round and Round the Garden. They can be seen in any order as a trilogy. Each play is also a self-contained story that can be viewed individually. HOW CLEVER IS THAT?

It’s British author Alan Ayckbourn’s take on a contemporary rake (Norman) who tries his damnedest to bed three sisters. It matters not a whit that two are his sisters-in-law. We saw Round and Round the Garden and it was gut-busting funny from start to finish. AGAIN with the British authors! Wha?! Is it in the water? Something to do with the Thames?

I’d love to see the other two parts of the trilogy but there are so many other great shows to see that I’m not sure I’ll get around to it. The 2008-09 theater season in New York has been extraordinary. This is going to be remembered as a golden age for plays. Not musicals. Plays. (Although the revivals of Hair and West Side Story are suppose to be great. CB loved Hair and, unlike me, he has standards, so that’s saying something.)

It’s been one great show opening after another. The writing has never been stronger and you can see big celebs with top-notch acting chops on stage, which is always a treat. Jane Fonda, David Hyde Pierce, Allison Janney, James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Geoffrey Rush, Brian Dennehy, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, Angela Lansbury, Rupert Everett, Cynthia Nixon and many others are currently tripping the lights. C’mon down!

It was a good night of theater for the Scots. Mary Stewart is yet another take on the Mary, Queen of Scots/Elizabeth I smackdown. In this version, beautifully transferred to Broadway from the Donmar Warehouse in London, British national treasures Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter play the battling Queens who are Kings.

I like small theater but I’ve always said it’s nice to see what they can do with a big budget. The second act opens with Mary enjoying a brief taste of freedom from prison. She dances in a surprisingly realistic stage-soaking rainstorm and then confronts Elizabeth. Impressive stage effects are nice but it’s just window dressing without superb acting behind it. This is the only scene in the entire three hour production where the two face off and Mary, Queen of Scots, takes down Elizabeth I in one round. Pow.

Phyllida Lloyd, the smart director, dressed the two Queens in period costumes but the men around them in contemporary dark suit and tie. It made them look like the bureaucrats they are. A very clever conceit.

I am such a sucker for British drama. I don’t really like Russian theater and some American playwrights leave me cold. But the UK seems to consistently pump out one great show after another. Thanks, guys!

Krapp, 39 is the fine, funny monologue currently at the Soho Playhouse that was inspired by Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. In Krapp’s Last Tape, a 69 year old man ruminates on his life while listening to a tape he recorded when he was 39.

Krapp, 39 is the invention of Michael Laurence. The clever premise is that on this, his 39th birthday, Laurence records a tape that he will use 30 years from now in a production of Krapp’s Last Tape. The tape is a jumping off point to examine his life. Could you sit alone on a stage and reveal all your personal and professional failures to an audience? Not I.

We learn what it’s like to be an actor barely scraping by. Actors cannot plant roots. They travel from town to town looking for work in regional theater. Relationships don’t flourish and having children is out of the question.

Although he lived that way for many years, Laurence isn’t having a problem right now. This show overlaps with his work as an understudy in the upcoming Broadway production of Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms with Brian Dennehey. To accommodate this overlap, curtain for Krapp 39 is at 5:00. After his :90 minute monologue, he dashes uptown for rehearsal. I suppose it’s an actor’s dream, although I would need a nap between gigs.

CB and I saw the Roundabout Theater Company production of Waiting for Godot with Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin and John Goodman. Goodman shaved his head! He’s gotten so massive that he looks like a Bond villain. And nobody can navigate a stage like Nathan Lane. His movements are fluid and graceful.

We loved it, although some audience members didn’t return after the intermission. I understand why they would bail out. Samuel Beckett is about as esoteric as Broadway gets and he’s definitely an acquired taste, so if you’ve wandered in off the street and didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, you might be more inclined to walk out.

The first time I saw a production of Godot was many years ago in a dingy Bowery theater. I was prepared for an evening of pretentious babble and nonsense but it’s actually a surprisingly funny play. The absurdity of two idiots waiting for someone who is never coming has more comic potential than you would think. It’s worth the effort to hang on to the stream of dialog as it’s flying by (and, yes, it can be an effort at times).

You have to let go of the notion that there’s a traditional linear plot with a beginning, middle and end. As we were leaving the theater, I overheard someone say, “Well, I have no idea what that was about.” It’s not about anything. (Well, to me, anyway. The show is probably fraught with metaphor but that stuff always gets by me. You can’t be subtle with me. It won’t work.) If it’s about anything at all, it seems to me it’s about the language and the acting. A story? Not so much.

The last 30 seconds might have been the best part of the show. There was a gloriously staged fade-out. Estragon (Lane) and Vladimir (Irwin) wait under the tree looking slightly upward. The lights begin to slowly, slowly dim. The shadows thicken, nothing is said, and the silence is heavy. It was a masterwork of stage design and lighting. Beautiful.

Someone did us a solid favor. We were sitting way the hell in the back of the balcony and during the intermission a man walked up to us, asked if we wanted to sit in the orchestra section and handed us his two ticket stubs. He didn’t like the show and instead of just leaving the theater, he walked back to the worst seats in the house and upgraded us. They were $116 seats. What a pal!