“Critic’s Choice” and Other Comedies

Ira Levin, the same author who terrified us with Rosemarys Baby and The Boys from Brazil also, astonishingly, wrote laugh-out-loud comedies. Here are three of his most side-splitting offeringsthe pick of the litterthe critics choice.

CRITICS CHOICE

This comic fable of fictional theater critic Parker Ballantine is a giddy excursion to a lost era of cocktails, tuxedos, witty quips, and urbane ripostes that crackle and throw out sparks (New York Morning Telegraph).

BREAK A LEG

A beleaguered theater company uses its combined talents to drive out the brutish critic whos been decimating their productions. If Dangerous Liaisons mated with She Loves Me, their child would be Break A Legthe most howlingly riotous of all Levins creations.

CANTORIAL

A synagogue-to-condo conversion is haunted by the ghost of its former cantor, in this buoyant comedy thats part ghost story, part musical, andas Levin termed itprobably the warmest thing Ive ever written.