If the Mint Theater's program is to be believed, Jules Romain's "Donogoo" premiered in Paris in 1930 and caused - even for the French - quite a sensation. This seems likely; this is a comedy with a darkly cynical edge to it, and one all the more potent because it stays tucked away in the comedy throughout.

Donogoo, for the record, is a topographical mistake, a South American city that refuses to exist.  The revelation of this non-reality is no spoiler - it is the driving engine, or non-engine, of the play. Lamendin, a man nonchalantly suicidal (he is French, after all), is given a raison d'etre by a radical psychotherapist and embarks on a crusade to promote this tropical Brigadoon, in order to save the scholarly reputation of a geographer who done slipped up. From here, commercial zeal doesn't collide with ethics, but rather sits on top of them. Hence the cynicism.

It must be said that this sort of thing requires a more frenzied pacing than director Gus Kaikkonen provides. The performance has a rhythm of real life but the play is essentially farce, and farce needs to charge ahead blindly and quickly. That said, the actors do just fine, and George Morfogen's conflicted professor is a joy; the dizzying shifts in setting are deftly and attractively attended to by sly projections and the occasional device; and, true to deeply cynical comedy, the humor leaves a bitter aftertaste because, well, people are no damn good. You will not want to invest in Donogoo, or even plan a visit, when the lights go down. But you will not be sorry that you spent an hour or two considering the prospect, and you will be happier about emerging on 43rd Street which, these days, is both tropical and real.