New YorkOld-fashioned stage comedy is in short supply on Broadway, for the good reason that comic tastes in the U.S. have changed. We no longer have a Neil Simon because we no longer need a Neil Simon, a purveyor of joke-slinging stage sitcoms for suburbanites. Mr. Simon’s place in the theatrical universe was long ago taken over by network TV. (Why, then, don’t we have an Alan Ayckbourn? Because England’s funniest playwright specializes in a uniquely English brand of farce, the sad comedy of middle-class manners…but that’s...

Source: Wall Street Journal January 30, 2020 20:37 UTC