The Pulitzer Prize for Drama, presented annually since 1918 by New York’s Columbia University, are one of the most sought-after dramatic prizes there; but curiously, though a win usually means a transatlantic transfer, it’s intriguing to note how few of them actually then succeed in London. Over the last twenty-five years, Pulitzer winning plays have been regularly produced here at the Lyric Hammersmith (Talley’s Folly, a 1980 winner), Bush (Crimes of the Heart, 1981), Hampstead (‘Night Mother, 1983; Dinner with Friends, 2000; Anna in the Tropics, 2003), Tricycle (The Piano Lesson, 1990), Donmar (How I Learned to Drive, 1998; Proof, 2001), Greenwich (The Heidi Chronicles, 1988) and Royal Court (Topdog/Underdog, 2002), but none have gone on to a commercial run. When the Pulitzer wins have come straight to the West End, they have regularly failed: from Fences (1987) and Rent (1996) to Driving Miss Daisy (1988), Wit (1999) and I Am My Own Wife (2004), the latter of which closes this weekend at the Duke of York’s after a run of barely a month.
The only exceptions to this over the last quarter of a century have been Albee’s Three Tall Women (1994) and Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers (a 1991 win that transferred first to the National and then on the West End), as well as three more National Theatre hits, Angels in America (in fact produced on the South Bank first before it went to New York), Glengarry Glen Ross (1984), Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George (currently being revived at the Menier Chocolate Factory).
So the Pulitzers could be said to work in reverse here: a win in New York points to the fact that London prospects could be doubtful.
