No Time For Comedy

I finished reading No Time For Comedy, by S. N. Behrman, which is itself a comedy. It concerns a playwright who has been persuaded that he shouldn't write comedy any more.

It turns out, in the end, that he should write a comedy after all, and the action which the audience has been watching turns out to be the source of that new play.

I thought this was quite self-referential for a 1939 play. Deathtrap, by Ira Levin, plays extensively with the same idea.

I hadn't heard of Behrman, or this play, but he was a popular playwright of the time.

The Broadway production featured a young Laurence Oliver as the playwright. It was his first big Broadway role. He wowed the New York crowd.

Periodically they tell you that comedy is dead,
that the world situation is so filled with doom and dread
that there really is no mental room remaining for bright laughter.

But - you can bet - you'll hear a joke, and chortle shortly after.