"Manuscript Found in Zaragoza," he said, "is a re-creation of 19th-century French boulevard comedy with contemporary technical resources and an avant-garde sensibility."

There are still plenty of musicals and one-man shows on Broadway, but the classic boulevard comedy - once the backbone of commercial theater - has become scarce.

From 1931, he worked as a journalist while further exploring burlesque style playwriting, which often operated between boulevard comedy and intimate tragedy.

"Getting Married" is a serious play of ideas presented in a see-through costume of boulevard comedy.

She invites him to see her perform in the small role she has as a maid in a boulevard comedy.

Mr. Leaveaux's staging adroitly balances the boulevard comedy with an emotional gravity, an awareness that people are being seriously wounded here.

I thought it was going to be another boulevard comedy in a language I wouldn't understand.

Once regarded as a writer of boulevard comedy, he has become a playwright with an increasingly dark comic vision.

Michael Grandage directs with the momentum of a ticking-bomb thriller and the zing of a boulevard comedy (1:40).