David Ives’ “All in the Timing” brings together eight ultra-short sketches for a gourmet tasting menu of comedy, playing for the next two weekends in the Black Box performance space at Napa’s Dreamweavers Theatre.

The New York Times likened Ives’ octet to “sketches for some hilarious, celestially conceived revue,” and dubbed the playwright “a master of fun.”

Directed by Louise Anderson, the cast includes Kevin Barney, Graham Bruce, Nolan Kenmonth-Barney, Joe Lewis, Jeanne Maxwell, Gretchen Odders, June Alane Reif and Rose Marie Sweeney. Nearly all the actors play multiple characters in a range of predicaments, from the philosophical to the romantic.

“The Philadelphia” presents a young man in a restaurant who has fallen into a Twilight Zone-like state in which he cannot get anything he asks for. His only way out of the dilemma? To ask for the opposite of what he wants.

“The Universal Language” brings together a young woman with a stutter and the creator of Unamunda, a wild comic language that sends the pair off into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics — and, of course, true love.

“Sure Thing,” which was performed with a celebrity cast at Dreamweavers’ 2006 fund-raiser, is a classic of contemporary comedy: Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love.

“Words, Words, Words” recalls the philosophical adage about three monkeys typing into infinity. “Mere Mortals” eavesdrops during lunch hour on a girder 50 stories over the street. In “Arabian Nights,” two utterly normal people from different countries find whirlwind romance, spurred on by a wacky translator.

“Variations on the Death of Trotsky” shows the Russian revolutionary on the day of his demise, desperately trying to cope. “The Mystery at Twicknam Vicarage” finds a body on the carpet, three ridiculous Masterpiece Theatre-style suspects and a bumbling Scotland Yard detective solving philosophical quandaries as they investigate.

Dreamweavers is sponsored by Dey L.P. The theater is at 1637 Imola Ave., to the rear of the Riverpark Shopping Center.

‘All in the Timing’

Dreamweavers Theatre,

Aug. 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19

Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays,  2 p.m.

Tickets: $20, regular

$18, senior/military

Black Box (no show passes or complimentary tickets)

1637 Imola Ave.

Box Office, 255-LIVE (5483) or

www.dreamweaverstheatre.org