Theater: A Spoonful of Sugar; Two big-name musicals--and a handful of smaller shows--arrive to nurse the West End back to health.

Byline: Tara Pepper

At first glance it seems the big new shows hitting London's West End stages this autumn couldn't be more different. "The Woman in White," Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical, is set in an adult web of intrigue, marriage, lawyers and secrecy. "Mary Poppins," the latest offering from the West End's other theater titan, Cameron Mackintosh, takes place largely in the children's realm of polite teas, kites and walks in the park. But look deeper, and the two are strikingly similar. At the start of "The Woman in White," a wraith emerges out of a swirling mist wailing ghostly, spine-chilling melodies; her mystery haunts the play. "Mary Poppins" opens with a dark chorus of chimney sweeps and a howling east wind, which whisks the nanny--who has her own secrets--into the troubled household at 17 Cherry Tree Lane. Both bring to the stage a touch of magic, at once sinister and alluring, which exists in a world beyond the everyday.

West End theaters are hoping they will cast their spell on the box office. After recent high-profile Lloyd Webber productions like "Whistle Down the Wind" and "The Beautiful Game" flopped, theaterland needs a hit that will captivate critics and lure big crowds. The Society of London Theatre's annual report found that attendance through the end of August was down 2 percent over 2003--especially alarming considering a record number of West End venues stood empty last year. And a 2003 study by the Theatres Trust estimated that London's playhouses will need nearly $450 million worth of refurbishments over the next 15 years. Is the curtain in danger of falling on London's West End?

Not if Macintosh and Lloyd Webber can kick-start the season. Paul James, commercial manager of the Society of London Theatre, is optimistic. "It's been a long time since so many big new shows opened in a space of just a few weeks," he says. "There's a real buzz around the West End which will lift the whole industry." Indeed, other quality works are already finding a place: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," starring Christian Slater as an anarchic small-time crook who is committed to a psychiatric hospital, opened at the Gielgud Theatre last week. "Journey's End," R.C. Sherriff's still relevant tale set in the trenches of World War I, is winning raves at the Playhouse Theatre. And David Eldridge's explosive "Festen," about a family forced to confront dark secrets from its past, opens at the Lyric this week.

Britain's subsidized National Theatre, too, appears to be on a winning streak--most recently with David Hare's powerful new political drama "Stuff Happens." Usually, that's good news for the West End; the National has long broken hits that then transfer there, where they reap big profits. This year, however, the National is hanging onto two of its biggest recent successes: "The History Boys," about a class of adolescents confronting adulthood, which continues in repertory through the winter, and "His Dark Materials," an adaptation of Philip Pullman's popular trilogy that debuted in the spring and reopens in November. That may not help the West End, but it's certainly a boon to London theatergoers.

Still, all eyes are on those two women--the one in white and the one with the magic umbrella. "Mary Poppins," currently in previews at the Hippodrome in Bristol, opens Dec. 15 in the capital. So far, the production has kept a low profile; there are no available photos and no photo call was organized for the Bristol opening. "You don't try and make hits," says director Richard Eyre. "You just try and do it as well as possible, put all the right ingredients in there and hope the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Lloyd Webber based "The Woman in White" on Wilkie ...