The theater world is littered with playscripts by directors who thought, after overseeing too many productions of the usual stage fare, they could do better. They usually can’t.

But — oh, that Peter Hill, always full of surprises. The honcho behind the Copperstate Dinner Theater, inside the dog-as-pony-show Phoenix Greyhound Park, Hill has directed his fair share of farces throughout his theatrical tenure. And with enough “Noises Off” and “Rumors” under his belt, it’s no surprise he wrote his own living room farce, “Ashes to Ashes,” in the mid-1990s. It’s getting a restaging this summer at Copperstate. And lo and behold — it’s actually pretty darn funny.

Credit Hill for knowing the Copperstate crowd can handle farce that’s a little more sexual, a little edgier — even a little goofier —than the genre usually allows. For them he’s set up an over-the-top premise: Broadway director R.J. Spaulding (played by Ross Collins) wakes up one morning with a roaring hangover, only to discover that over a weekend blackout he’s become engaged to three different women: A bottle-blonde, bra-less bimbo named Rainbow (Ashley Shoemaker); a New Joisey Italian cabaret dancer (Lisa Martina) with connections to the mafia; and an actress (Kerry McCue) who thinks R.J. is a Russian defector. All three end up at his place that morning. Wackiness ensues.

As with any nookie farce, audiences spend half the time wondering why the poor schlub doesn’t just stop and tell the truth to the three ladies (and to his wife, from whom he’s separated).
As the disastrously drunkard director, Collins starts out with a bang (or a stumble; his hangover routine is classic) only to wither back to hollowness as the rest of the farce is spent with him merely reacting to over-the-top gleeful performances by the rest of the cast, including towering Phil Peulecka as a menacing but ineffectual mob assassin and Terry Gadaire as R.J.’s mincingly gay sidekick, Bobby — who gets such hundred-dollar lines as, to R.J., “Look at you, a straight man in the theater. You’re practically a freak.” It’s obvious Hill had a much grander time writing for his oddball cast of caricature-characters rather than straight-man R.J.

To be sure, “Ashes to Ashes” is packed with great lines — jokes I didn’t know Hill had in him: To the Italian in her skimpy showgirl outfit, Bobby says, “They must’ve gone crazy trying to vaccinate you where it wouldn’t show”; later, he explains she’s “a strict Freudian mafioso — one slip and you’re dead.”

And Hill isn’t just a man of words. He’s a man of action, creating sight gags like hiding McCue inside the hideaway sofabed and other visual riffs involving the apartment’s 10-story window, Hill’s material makes for a fun night of silly comedy.

At times, it can seem like he is following the traditional form of farce almost to the point of spoof, like when two people get pied — or caked, actually — in the face. At others, like when R.J., Bobby and a knocked-out girl are caught in Kama Sutra-like positions, Hill veers into the blue realm beyond farce.

The director keeps his play absurdly amusing to the last moment, and though the resolution is a head-scratcher, “Ashes to Ashes” remains a giggly hoot throughout. Glad to see it’s being restaged, and here’s hoping Hill can forgive any reservations one might have had about a director’s original production. Hill remains the Valley’s king of farce.