The selling point of "Is He Dead?" is that it's a "new" play by Mark Twain. He wrote this comedy in 1898, but it wasn't produced until this century, when an adaptation by David Ives became a 2007 Broadway hit.

I like to imagine that Twain is looking down at this from a white-suited heaven while smiles and frowns chase each other across his face. First he's pleased that his work has become a success. Then he's upset that the success has come too late to save him from financial hardship. And finally, he's pleased again, because it proves the very point of the play -- that artists are better appreciated after they're dead.

The play is a fictionalized account of the life of Jean-François Millet, a French painter best-known for his scenes of peasant farmers. He knows his work is good, but no one's buying it, and his debts are closing in on him. The solution? Fake his own death to increase the value of his work, and invent a twin sister so he can impersonate her and collect the profits.

While watching Pioneer Theatre's Utah premiere of the play, I was struck by its similarity to Brandon Thomas' "Charley's Aunt," because both works are farces that involve 19th century men dressing up as women while smoking cigars and fending off marriage proposals. Apparently, 19th century theatergoers had the same reaction; as PTC's dramaturg points out in the program notes, "Charley's Aunt" was written in 1892, so when Twain's work came along six years later, its perceived lack of originality may have kept it from getting produced.

Truth be told, though, I think PTC's production of "Is He Dead?" is more fun and has more to say than "Charley's Aunt."

James Wolk set the scene with two sumptuous designs, showcasing the room-with-a-view style that he displayed so well in PTC's production of "The Yellow Leaf." I particularly appreciated the paint-speckled furniture in Millet's studio and the way it was hung with reproductions of his work.

There were plenty of great comic moments at the matinee on Halloween. Some of these depended on Mark Twain-style witticisms, such as when a character is speaking about Millet's supposed remains in a coffin, and says, "It's only mortal clay, squared off and fired by the kiln of eternity," to which another character responds, "He was a brick, wasn't he?"

Other moments depend more on the absurd conventions of farce, such as when Millet's "sister," Daisy Tillou, makes outrageous claims about having seven children in two years at various times of the year, and when "she" takes a huge drag on "her" cigar just before she comes to the dramatic line of her speech, "I am a lady!"

Particularly fine at this style of comedy is Jessie Austrian as the sister of Millet's fiancée, who adopts an outrageous French accent to impersonate a policeman.

But there's no moment quite so outrageous as the one in which Millet and his friends get his creditor to change his mind about wanting to marry "Daisy."

But despite all this well-executed comedy, it's the drama that has stayed with me. When Jean-François Millet (Michael Keyloun) spoke about struggling with poverty and waiting to be recognized for his work, he showed a mournful yearning that rang with authenticity.

When he was chumming around with his three pals, Dutchy (Paul Kiernan), O'Shaughnessy (David Graham Jones) and especially the larger-than-life Chicago (Graham Rowat), they displayed such camaraderie that it almost made being a starving artist look like fun.

And in all the scenes when Millet was with his fiancée, Marie (Carianne Jones) and yet separated from her, the longing was palpable.

Add to that the philosophical question of why we can't seem to fully appreciate artists while they're around to enjoy it, and you've got a work with staying power -- especially since it underscores its point by its very existence.