Entertainment

Just what doctor ordered

Poor Meena. The harried heroine of Kate Fodor’s new play, “Rx,” is in a funk, and no wonder: A published poet, she works in a soulless gray office as the managing editor for piggeries at American Cattle & Swine magazine.

Desperate to avoid conflict, she hides in the old ladies’ underwear section of the local department store so she can cry in peace.

Not surprisingly, Meena (Marin Hinkle, Judith on “Two and a Half Men”) is also single.

At her wits’ end, she enrolls in a clinical trial for SP-925, a new drug designed to cure “workplace depression.”

Not only is medication easier than quitting your job and starting anew, but taking antidepressants is good for the “long-term revenue stream” of companies like Schmidt Pharma, which plans to sell SP-925 under the name Thriveon.

“People don’t hate their jobs because of corporate crap,” explains Allison (Elizabeth Rich), the gung-ho MBA who leads Schmidt’s Neurology Business Unit. “People hate their jobs because of a treatable norepinephrine deficiency that manifests during the workday.”

Zippily directed by Ethan McSweeny, “Rx” starts off great. Fodor satirizes drug companies that try to benefit from people’s problems, but doesn’t let the employees get away with complacency.

Hinkle is particularly funny as an overwhelmed literary type whose career has taken a wrong turn, but she can also switch from gray to color when Meena’s mood picks up.

Suddenly, this Debbie Downer begins to enjoy discussing carcass weight with her boss, Simon (Michael Bakkensen).

But Meena’s new upbeat outlook may not be SP-925’s doing: She’s fallen in love with her doctor, Phil (Stephen Kunken), a sentimental geek who quotes her old prose poems back to her.

Fodor gets many bittersweet laughs out of Meena and Phil’s fumbling attempts to deal with their messy emotions — the doctor starts looking for a heartbreak pill.

Too bad “Rx” loses its focus in its second half, especially when it comes to Frances, an elderly widow shopping for XXL panties. Even as played by comic genius Marylouise Burke, Frances never amounts to more than a dispenser of aw-shucks wisdom.

Still, for most of its 100-minute running time, “Rx” works as a brisk little comedy. If laughter is the best medicine, maybe health plans should cover the ticket price.