LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - For a playwright, novelist and professor of chemistry emeritus at Stanford University, Carl Djerassi knows a lot about mangoes. Fleshy, succulent and eminently edible, these aromatic delicacies play a central role in Djerassi's screwball comedy about a best-selling but suicidal author, his gorgeous but disaffected wife and an earnest but gullible Manhattan shrink.

Stephen is a rich and successful novelist who confides in his psychiatrist, Theodore, that he plans to kill himself because his career no longer has any meaning for him, his wife wants a divorce and "nothing improves a literary reputation so much as death."

Soon after headlines appear saying that Stephen has drowned at sea, his beautiful blonde widow Miriam shows up at Theodore's couch seeking to find out what had been on her late husband's mind. It quickly transpires that she is not entirely sure that he is entirely late.

Sure enough, Stephen reappears in disguise at the shrink's door one night because he wants to reinvent himself but has no one to confide in. Trouble is, Theodore is quite smitten with Miriam, and when the lady shows him the proper, or rather quite improper, way to peel and eat a mango, the eternal triangle gets very juicy.

The play is loosely based on "Marx, deceased," a 1994 novel Djerassi wrote about a man inspired by Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa to stage his own death so he can find out where he truly ranks in the literary canon. Pessoa was noted for endlessly reinventing himself.

The play's construct, however, is too light to withstand much examination. Authors publish under pseudonyms all the time, after all, and there's no accounting for how Stephen remains wealthy in his new guise. Thankfully, it moves swiftly.

Stephen is counting on a new novel to launch him as a new person, but when Miriam finds a copy of it on the computer he left behind, she has it published as the last work of his late successful self.

She has made a few changes, however, and when it becomes a huge hit and receives great reviews, Stephen's notion of acclaim following death proves true. The problem is that he no longer feels that it's his work.

It's to Djerassi's credit that he plays all these sober issues for laughs. Djerassi is famous for developing the first synthesis of an oral contraceptive, but as a writer he has a keen ear for an offbeat line. "'Normal' is not a word we use here," the shrink says at one point. And the widow confesses, "I think of my husband's death, and I chuckle."

He is greatly assisted in his funny lines and gags by three very assured actors. The shrink's office, on a snug stage, has a convincing feel in Nicky Shaw's design, and director Andy Jordan plays most of the action on and off the couch to great effect.

It's a winning combination that overcomes some airy and not very persuasive notions about death and ego. Michael Praed is all tweed, bow tie and stammer as Theodore in a pitch-perfect performance that is a throwback to '30s screwball movies. Ralph Saxon, as Stephen, has the open bluster and charm of a Jack Carson, and Leigh Zimmerman, who is a tall drink of water, plays Miriam with the straight-on and sexy confidence of a woman who knows exactly what to do with a mango.

Cast: Stephen: Rolf Saxon; the Shrink: Michael Praed; Miriam: Leigh Zimmerman.

Playwright: Carl Djerassi; Director: Andy Jordan; Set designer: Nicky Shaw; Music: Iain Dunnet; Lighting designer: Chris Corner; Sound designer: Seb Frost @ Orbital Sound.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter