Critics had a field day with director Sam Mendes’s comment last week that British theater’s “reliance on Hollywood stars meant it was in peril of being held hostage by the lure of glamour,” since it was Mendes himself who had Nicole Kidman strip bare in “The Blue Room” last year and set off the current craze for celebrity casting (and stripping). But, if lagging ticket sales are any indication, British audiences finally are tiring of Hollywood stars taking center stage. – The Guardian