Slapstick par excellence for little kids and the young at heart.

The newest production at Seattle Children’s Theatre is not particularly educational, unless you think that you’d learn something about giving mice cookies. It is a wonderful example of physical comedy in the Road Runner-Wiley Coyote style of theatrical slapstick.

This is a little story from a short book by Laura Numeroff, adapted by Jody Davidson. Boy is left at home with careful “Mom” instructions, and Mouse shows up when he smells cookies. Mouse asks for cookies, and then some milk, and then a mirror and hair-cutting scissors and then… well, it’s not supposed to make a lot of sense. It’s supposed to make a mess.

MJ Sieber as Boy and Don Darryl Rivera as Mouse are clearly having a good time. But Rivera gets the bulk of the tricks, magic included. Both are pros at doing this kind of children’s play, knowing what to expect from little kids shouting out things from the audience as they get excited, knowing that bumps in the head and falling down are delightful to little ones, and playing broadly, but not making the audience feel stupid. Rivera is so adorable, you can’t help but laugh, even when he’s just sleeping.

The set by Jennifer Zeyl is an amazing kitchen, colorful and oversized to enhance climb-ability. Costumes by Heidi Ganser are also colorful and cute. Lighting design by Robert Aguilar makes for some fun with light switches as Mouse experiments with turning lights on and off. At just about an hour fifteen, it shouldn’t tax the patience of even the smaller ones, though they should probably be above age two.