Report From London: Othello at the Donmar Warehouse, The Country Wife at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, The Sound of Music at the London Palladium. In a longer than usual "commute" we had a whirlwind three days going to theater in London and felt a review might prove useful to any of our readers who venture across the pond. We'll start with the worst, "The Country Wife" and end up with the best ,"Othello." "The Country Wife" a 1675 Restoration classic by William Wycherly used to be the sort of play that was "money in the bank" in the London Theatre. No longer. In a high concept direction by Jonathan Kent, a director I will assiduously avoid from now on, the cast led by Toby Stephens who is simply dreadful as Mr. Horner, overacts and mugs their way through it. Sitting close, it was easy to see how bored they were by what they were doing. Sitting there was like being impaled. The night after, we went to "The Sound of Music" which has received an extravagant Andrew Lloyd Webber type mega-production. Except for the clumsy, silly, revolving mountain disc that begins and ends it, the production is for the most part excellent. So is the wonderful cast headed by the adorable Connie Fisher as Maria. Fisher, the youngest Maria I've seen, won the part in a famous national TV contest and has become beloved in the musical. And deservedly so. She is the most charming and natural Maria, certainly comparable to Julie Andrews, and though she looked a little gaunt (she has had to curtail her performances on Mondays - it can't be easy being so perky week in and week out), she was utterly delightful. The first performance we saw was the best - in fact historically so. The papers in London report that "Othello" tickets have been bringing $4000 on the Internet. No wonder because it is unlikely that any of us will ever see the like of this performance again. I've seen Othello twice before with towering Iagos: Ian McKellen and Liev Schreiber, but neither production had an Othello of equal ability. Here Ewan McGregor, an Iago who is the most implacably evil of the three, is more than matched by the phenomenal Othello of Chiwetel Ejiofor who is so very grand and yet so very human and failing. He breaks our hearts as he falls into the spell of Iago. [Ejiofor is one of the great actors in the British Theatre today and I hope New York audiences get to see him live.] The impossibly dewy Desdemona Kelly Reilly moves with such grace and loveliness that her murder seems an unfathomable crime and tragedy. The direction by Michael Grandage is sensational and the sets and costumes are just about perfect. The grades: Othello A+, Sound of Music B+, The Country Wife F.