In 1983 in these pages, Robert Towers called this "a macabre comedy of impulsive, thwarted lives" and said "Jhabvala renders a little world of emotional, greedy refugees with much shrewdness of insight."

And by underplaying the macabre comedy and focusing instead on his character's imaginative anguish, the author moves away from the standard Gothic tale toward something more neurotic, more modern.

His younger brother, Svend Unmack Larsen, said growing up among the poor was "this mixture of tragedy and baroque, macabre comedy" that gave him an early understanding of social problems and the dark sides of society.

On another level, I felt like the unwilling straight man in a macabre comedy of errors.

Larsen said that his childhood among the poor was "this mixture of tragedy and baroque, macabre comedy" and gave him an understanding of social problems and the dark sides of society.

One reason for the show's lackluster ratings last year may have been its peculiar melange of issue-oriented drama and macabre comedy.

In a lighter, more traditional vein, Jean Becker's macabre black comedy "Un Crime au Paradis" ("A Crime in Paradise") looks at a marriage from hell between a farmer and his wife.

Since the more macabre comedy "The Lesson" is clear-cut, at least in its emotional dynamics, this problem doesn't arise.

The 36-year-old director was honing "No Way to Treat a Lady," a macabre musical comedy that will mark his New York comeback when it opens at the Hudson Guild tonight.

This is a death, even if you know it's coming, that is still shocking in its bluntness, suddenness and macabre comedy.