‘Fish in the Dark’ is prett-ay, prett-ay, prett-ay good

“Fish in the Dark,” the new Broadway comedy written by and starring Larry David, might as well be called “Curb Your Enthusiasm: Live” or “Larry David and Friends.” Whereas David plays himself (or at least a semi-fictional version of himself) on the HBO television series, here he portrays a guy named Norman Drexel. Even so, the bespectacled, balding David is playing the same sort of socially awkward, extremely inappropriate, befuddled, self-centered smartass. Hardly a great work of dramatic literature, “Fish in the Dark” hearkens back to the silly and insubstantial Broadway comedies of the 1960s, full of one-dimensional characters and nonsensical farce. Following the death of his father, Norman concocts an elaborate scheme with his housekeeper (an underutilized Rosie Perez) to convince his overbearing mother (a comically sublime Jayne Houdyshell) to move in with his brother instead of him.