Christopher Durang is a young playwright out of Harvard and Yale who took the wrong turn at some point and wound up in comedy. While his contemporaries were grimly exploring the Vietnam experience or urban bleakness or poking through the ashes of burned-out lives, Durang was busy collaborating on a send-up of Dostoevski called The Idiots Karamazov. He was also turning out deliciously titled comedies like When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth, The Nature and Purpose of the Universe, and The Vietnamization of New Jersey.

His latest is A History of the American Film, an elaborate spoof of more than a half-century of everything worth spoofing on the screen. The play … sprang Durang to national attention. But while the critics were generally delighted, there was a good deal of uncertainty about exactly what Durang's intentions were. Is the play an affectionate tribute to cinema or a bitter satire...