Maggie Smith makes a Broadway comeback

LONDON -- Maggie Smith will return to Broadway for the first time in over 13 years late this fall in the David Hare play "The Breath of Life," the play's producer, Robert Fox, said Tuesday.\nBut she won't be joined by her co-star, Judi Dench, who prefers to stay home in England, Fox said.\nThe pairing of two dames of the British theater has made for a hot ticket since the two-character play, directed by Howard Davies, opened on the West End in October. Hare also wrote the screenplay for the movie "The Hours," for which he's nominated for an Oscar. After two extensions, the London engagement finishes Saturday at the Theater Royal, Haymarket.\nIn the play, Smith plays the longtime mistress of the lawyer to whom Dench was formerly married. Over the course of a long night of soul-searching and revelations on the Isle of Wight, the two women try to look forward, not back -- to take in, as Smith's character puts it, "the breath of life."\nA major box office draw on both sides of the Atlantic, Smith won a Tony Award for her last Broadway show, "Lettice and Lovage," in 1990. A two-time Oscar winner, she has found a new international audience through her recurring role as Professor McGonagall in the "Harry Potter" movies.\nFox did not name Dench's replacement for the Broadway run but said another British dame -- Eileen Atkins -- was a candidate for the part.