Both Korn and Meredith (Ahmed and Abby) have exceptionally rich voices and loads of stage presence. Korn plays a soulful and winsome part, and Meredith vamps relentlessly, steaming up the stage as a veiled-and-sequined cross between Madonna and Bette Midler. Warren, too, as the lovelorn Celia, belts out a show-stopping number to her old flame, Ahab, begging him not to make her retire ("Don't Veil Me Now").

But it may be too late. For Ahab is plotting with his free-market cohorts, the sultan is distracted, and the profit motive looms large in Abyssinia. At the end of the first act (which runs for a marathon 90 minutes), cliff-hanging questions remain: will capitalism turn the sandy Solong into an OPEC nightmare? Will the big-hearted Celia Lips be able to stop the evil Ahab and his mercenary fling, the Countess? Will the Sultan ever discover his own hormones? And will the overfed Ethel land a job with the Chicago defense?

AFTER AN interminable intermission, the drunken crowds are corraled back into the theatre. It would take a Richter-shaking song to wake this bunch. Wisely, Bravin, Chase, and Sagal have placed "Solong, Forever" where it is. Easily the most rousing number in the show, it's a stirring an-them to profit and sleaze.

The sets, particularly in the second act, underline the comic-book nature of this zany saga. In Technicolor orange and black, Solong has become a blazing, windswept, oil-spattered wasteland of a desert, worthy of Sam Shepard. Designer David Sumner has done an equally masterful job with the romantic starry skies and the eastern spires of the sultan's estate.

And the costumes, be they the nauseous green-orange-pink-yellow gauze of the harem or the chessboard getups of the crusaders, are wonderfully accurate and silly as well.

But it's the actors that steal the show. Consistently well-developed as characters--from Alma and Gwen to Abby--they also create a first-rate ensemble. Given a head start with a richly diverse score by Davity Chase--who provides everything from Arab theme music to fight-song melodies to torchy jazz with consistent finesse--and staging and choreography that are energetic but simple but enough to handle (usually) with grace and flair they take the ball and run with it.

ALTHOUGH MORE one-liners are calculated to fall flat than to reverberate, and although the "graceful" dance numbers are predictably gawky and clumsy (in "true Pudding fashion"), "Between the Sheiks" is one of the most spirited and colorful shows in recent Pudding memory. And the range of talent carries it headlong through three hours of nonstop silliness. It's not just "too hot" in Solong--it sizzles.