In N.Y., Comedies Bursting the Seams

NEW YORK -- The comeback phenomenon on Broadway this year doesn't involve a person, but a reflex.

Yes, laughter is back in vogue, so robustly that for the first time ever, Tony voters last month recognized an out-and-out farce as the best revival of a play. That show, 'Boeing-Boeing,' and its unlikely star -- a pricelessly clueless Mark Rylance -- are leading a completely unserious campaign in the theater district for the belly laughs and billfolds of the Broadway playgoer.

'Boeing-Boeing,' a '60s French farce that was adapted for the London stage and ran there for years, didn't catch on in its first appearance in New York in 1965. (It was made into a lame Jerry Lewis movie that same year.) The comedy -- about a scheming bachelor (here played by Bradley Whitford) living in Paris who juggles three marriage proposals to coquettish stewardesses for TWA (Kathryn Hahn), Alitalia (Gina Gershon) and Lufthansa (Mary McCormack) -- is silly in a guileless, all-in-good-sexy-fun sort of way.