Theater, no matter how hard we try, is nothing like life. It's amplified, focused, condensed and artificial. That's not to say we who craft it are unobliged to say anything about real life, but we needn't feel we must reproduce it photographically as if there were no audience members sharing the room with us. Some of the most magical, even meaningful drama approaches stories poetically, suggesting or evoking reality rather than pinning it down.

So it is with Pulp Productions' take on J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. It's staged in a girder-laced, open-air volume inside the former Grizwold Building. Director Caroline Rose Silva has no way to hoist her lead performer, Julianna Kimbrell, off the deck, so Peter's flight must be suggested through the use of shadow puppets. Yet nothing about this production implies anyone was stinting on detail, imagination or effort. When Dylan Clifthorne enters on all fours as Nana, the Darlings' canine caregiver, it works. I didn't find myself missing an elaborate dog suit or marionette; rather, I smiled at the simplicity and charm of an actor at play.

Read Christian Carvajal's full review of The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up in the Music & Culture section.

THE BOY WHO WOULDN'T GROW UP, 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through June 29, Pulp Productions at the Grizwold space, 310 4th Ave. E, Olympia, $5-$10, olypulp.wordpress.com