“Saying that Tom Stoppard wrote a witty play when he wrote “The Real Inspector Hound” is like saying that there are various colors in nature. It’s an understatement of mammoth proportions. In fact, Stoppard’s wit in “The Real Inspector Hound” comes on so quickly and completely, the farce immediately tumbles into nonstop, high-octane entertainment. And right under the chaos, a vibrant intelligence is at work. “The Real Inspector Hound,” at MetroStage, is a play within a play. In its first scene, we meet two critics, Birdboot (Michael Tolaydo) and Moon (Ralph Cosham). They are watching a show, criticizing a particularly bad whodunit of the sort Agatha Christie might write, where all the guests at Muldoon Manor are trapped with no way out. The radio keeps announcing that a murderer is on the loose.

In addition to his hilarious send-up of such plays, Stoppard’s creation of Moon and Birdboot is brilliant. He portrays both critics as pretentious in their own ways. The pompous Moon lapses into French and Latin and uses 25-cent words whenever he can. Birdboot is a womanizer and is smitten by one of the actresses in the cast but refuses to admit his marital infidelity.