One of the actors in The Neverending Story at Seattle Children’s Theater suggested eating a pot cookie before seeing the show—and who are we to contradict an artist’s request?

SCT has always been a pleasant haven for small children and stoned adults\, with its sparkly star-patterned carpeting and abundant water fountains. The not-stoned adults at the Children’s Theatre always seem even more tightly wound than their offspring, shouting in high, panicked voices: “Kendra! Come here! Don’t tease Mommy!” Or: “Oh my God, where’s my credit card?!” Or: “DON’T PRETEND TO JUMP OFF THAT!”

Anyway—The Neverending Story is an adaptation of a children’s novel written in the late 1970s by a German named Michael Ende. (In 1945, at 16 years old, Ende was drafted into the German army, but he threw away his rifle and deserted, by some accounts joining an anti-Nazi underground movement. Take that, Günter Grass.)

Seattle actor (and Stranger Genius) Gabriel Baron plays a dreamy, nerdy boy with a recently deceased mother.

One morning, he hides from bullies in a bookshop, where the gruff proprietor sort of gives him (and sort of lets him steal) the perfect book—a book about a fantasy world our dreamy nerd eventually falls into, where he finds his courage and becomes its hero.

The action is chopped into appropriately short episodes with monsters, trolls, people who are born old and grow young, a talking horse, and a giant grumpy turtle.

The puppets, designed by Douglas N. Paasch, are simple and great, and the actors are among Seattle’s finest: Baron, Hans Altwies, Sarah Hartlett, Michael Place (of Washington Ensemble Theatre), Tim Hyland (often of Strawberry Theatre Workshop), and so on.

The story is an allegory about depression—a great Nothing is negating the fantasyland, its Childlike Empress has a mysterious wasting disease, one character dies in the Swamps of Sadness because he can’t cheer up, and the Luck Dragon (Altwies) saves people by being endlessly relaxed and optimistic.

High-strung grown-ups take note.

(You’re on your own for pot brownies, but you can get your tickets here.)