Critic’s Choice an old play of zero renown seems to have come about from something like a bar bet, much like Serious Money, but this time it didn’t turn out terribly.

Some old theater critic at some old time put out an idea: hey fellas, I got a killer idea, this guy’s a theater critic, right, well what if his wife writes a play, huh? He’d have to review it, then sparks would fly! That is, in fact, the entirety of the plot of Ira Levin’s Critic’s Choice.

But plot isn’t everything and Levin manages to wring a truly interesting dilemma out of this: a man’s pride in his work vs his desire to support his family. Much like another underrated comedy of the era, A Thousand Clowns, everything in the play is complicated by the presence of a young son: in wanting to show ourselves worthy of respect, and to be a good model for our children, we have to hold ourselves to our values when we might be tempted to let things slide.

The play moves along at a steady clip, this isn’t a play where the key conflict is introduced after a lengthy setting of the exposition, no we’re off to the races by the end of scene one, and she’s already in previews by the end of the halfway point.

Although many of the references are long-past dated by this point, many of the joke setups are still quite modern: a frequent punching bag is the tendency to make everything into a musical, the posterboy in the play being a fictional (and hilarious) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: the Musical!

This wouldn’t be a play from the 50’s without some more uncomfortable elements, most of which are easily ignored except for Parker’s constant fallback to joking about hitting his kids, his wife, or really anyone he is upset with at the moment. For the most part though this is a welcome, enjoyable, and accessible comedy with only the bare minimum of infidelity necessary to stir the pot.