A constitutional amendment prohibiting shows about putting on shows and writers writing about writers should have been passed long ago. But, of the two, the former is, on balance, preferable: the backstage musical is at least potentially mythic—42nd Street’s plucky chorine going out a youngster and coming back a star taps into something more than just song ’n’ dance—and, flattering or not, there is a kernel of truth in the idea of show business as the central thruway of the American dream. But a writer writing about being a writer somehow invariably winds up shrinking the subject to something cramped and fetid and morbidly self-obsessed.

Brian Friel’s Give Me Your Answer, Do! (at the Gramercy) is a generic entry to the field. First seen in Dublin two years ago, the play presents us with two novelists—Garret Fitzmaurice (Gawn Grainger) is a hugely successful sellout prone to self-loathing, Tom Connolly ...

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