Marty Burnett's set for Ken Ludwig's farce ranks among his best in some time. It's an art deco hotel suite, circa 1934, white with black accessories, geometric shapes, and squared corners. Five of its six doors have mirrored trim. Everything's so orderly, even sitting with your feet up would feel like violating the rigid decorum.

Sonia Lerner's period costumes, tuxes and slinky, silken gowns, up the elegance factor even more. People don't wear outfits like these; they pose for magazine covers.

By the curtain call, however, the North Coast Rep's breathless, eight-person cast has run a steeplechase all over the set: unseemly plots, mistaken identities, and performances so broad that, in almost any other show on earth, would make over the top acting seem subtle.

Call the style "mock operatic," since everyone plays as if projecting to the back row at La Scala. Thing is: Matthew Weiner (bring him back!!) directs with such stopwatch precision he's turned a one-joke, fitfully funny script into a wall-to-wall hoot.

The premise: Tito Merelli, world's greatest tenor, will sing a one-night gig at the Cleveland Grand Opera Company. Drugged enough for three, Tito collapses, and young Max, the producer's gopher, performs Otello in his place.

Luckily for the event, Max can sing, as can Christopher M. Williams at North Coast. Williams is adept at slapstick takes that freeze a reaction amid the mayhem. As is Bernard X. Kopsho, who plays Tito as a hypersensitive, philandering oaf.

Though he began opening night with Act three, vein-bulging emotion, Ted Barton settled in as Saunders, the producer, and relied on crisp timing to earn laughs. Albert Park, as the starstruck bellhop, enhances all his scenes.

Tenor could be a two-man show, the others doing support work. But the director gives a quartet of women equal billing with the leads. Jill Drexler, Courtney Corey, Jacque Wilke, and especially Jessica John (a dervish as Tito's jealous wife) help make this production one of the year's top ensemble efforts.