Ira Levin, the same author who terrified the world with Rosemary’s Baby and The Boys from Brazil, astonishingly wrote laugh-out-loud comedies as well. Here are three of his most riotous, touching, and entertaining lighter stage plays––including the pick of the litter, Critic’s Choice.
CRITIC’S CHOICE
Parker Ballantine is a top Broadway critic. When his wife’s very first play lands on the Great White Way, will he review it? Can he review it? Filmed in 1963 starring Lucille Ball and Bob Hope, this “laugh laden and wonderful” (The American) excursion is a throwback to an era of cocktails, tuxedos, witty quips, and urbane ripostes that “crackle and throw out sparks” (New York Morning Telegraph)––pure “sparkling venom.” (Boston Globe).
BREAK A LEG
A beleaguered theater company attempts to permanently drive out the brutish critic who’s been decimating their productions by using their combined talents to stage madness-inducing scenarios in the path of his daily comings and goings. “One of the wildest, funniest, best-acted farces I’ve ever seen” (Associated Press). If She Loves Me mated with Dangerous Liaisons, their child would be Break A Leg––the most unapologetically hilarious comedy ever crafted by Levin.
CANTORIAL
A “yuppie” couple moves into a small synagogue-to-condo conversion on New York’s Lower East Side, only to have the spirit of its long dead cantor begin haunting them in song. This buoyant comedy is part ghost story, part musical, part spiritual journey, and––as Levin described it––“possibly the warmest thing I’ve ever written.” Prepare to be amused, intrigued, and charmed by this winning tale.
