Malone reviews a 1986 production of Guare's play, finding that the play's irreverence and subversion are more readily accepted by today's mainstream theatregoers than when House of Blue Leaves debuted in 1971.

There is standing room only at The House of Blue Leaves these days. John Guare's black comedy about a Queen's songwriting zookeeper, his pathetically disturbed wife and preposterously complacent mistress is now enjoying a well-deserved successful revival in a brilliantly staged production at New York City's Vivian Beaumont Theater, which has itself been recently revived from darkness. Blue Leaves is the discovery of the season, the new hot ticket, although the play is neither new nor previously neglected. Sixteen years ago, Blue Leaves won the New York and Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards; since then, college, community and stock theaters have frequently performed it. But this year it has received eight Tony nominations, including one for...