Musical revues usually carry the weight of ephemera — their effects lingering in the brain only as long as it takes to leave the theater and walk, humming, to the car.

Get in, turn on the radio, they’re gone.

But Arizona Theatre Company’s current production of “Oh, Coward!” changes all that. It’s a grand gala of fabulously droll ditties and witticisms from theater’s very own Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, and it practically challenges its audience to wipe the smiles off their faces long after the standing ovation.

At the helm of this show are Mark Anders and Carl Danielsen, who worked together in a critically applauded (but, alas, missed by me) ATC production of “Two Pianos, Four Hands” that went on to tour regional theaters after the home run. Here, they’re working gallantly at two upright pianos when not trading Coward quips (“The invisible man’s outside!” says one, and the other replies, “Tell him I can’t see him.”) or ceding power to a slick trio hiding behind a gossamer-curtained window at the back of the stage’s elegantly sparse design (courtesy of William Forrester) so they can take the stage to perform tunes from Cowards oeuvre like “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” that nasty bit of imperialism humor delivered with all the subtlety of a pith helmet.

Watching Anders and Danielsen trade big grins during their moments at their pianos is proof they’re still having a ball playing together.

The duo is supported by crooner Anna Lauris, at times sweet (“Mad About the Boy”) and others faux-
coquettishly ribald (“Would You Like to Stick a Pin in My Balloon?”). Like her male duo, she delivers Coward’s witty fare high ’n’ wry. She also provides the revue’s occasional doses of sexiness, sauntering out in the second act in a smashing red dress, cocktail in hand, to sing “Mad About the Boy.”

Mostly, the songs and sketches are delivered in such a rapid, almost overlapping fashion, there isn’t time for audiences to catch their breath. Compared to most sleep-inducing revues, that’s a welcome change.

By the end, when the trio brings down the house with a contemporized and hilarious riff on Cole Porter’s “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” — in the same vein that Coward himself tweaked the tune’s verses for his own bawdy devices — audiences can’t help but feel like they weren’t just subjected to another ordinary revue; rather, “Oh, Coward!” carries a different kind of weight — like you just spent the evening in the company of the most fascinating, most witty person you’ve ever met at a cocktail party.

Which is how I — walking to my car, humming and grinning — have always imagined Coward.