Not just the polite Lei Day pageant auntie and uncle kind of grin or the appreciative "How did they remember all those words?" kind of grin.

These are big, spontaneous, don't-care-if-I-look stupid, delighted toothy grins. This show wins over its audience almost immediately and doesn't disappoint until we find ourselves on the sidewalk outside, realizing it's over and that we have sore smile muscles.

Anyone who saw the original production at Kennedy Theatre in 1991 will remember it was a special night. It wasn't just that the show used pidgin and local Hawai'i stereotypes or that it updated familiar fairy tales in a new way. Other productions had done that.

Its special quality is that it was fresh and spontaneous, unspoiled and without pretense. It had genuine heart. Much of the credit went to director Tamara Hunt, who helped develop the material and gave it the necessary stage legs.

Matsumoto provided the script and lyrics, with music by Paul Palmore and additional songs by Roslyn. The result propels Matsumoto into two sequels, other original children's plays, and something of a cult and cottage industry.

It's a pleasure to report the current revival as the Hawai'i Theatre rediscovers the show's original freshness and gives every scene the illusion of the first time.

The production reunites the director — now Tamara Hunt Montgomery — and performers from the original cast who have become inseparable from the roles they originally created.

All historical context aside, the show works on its own accord. Witness U'ilani Kapuaakuni as Noelani, the Snow White character, about to bite into the poisoned mango left by Da Wicked Queen, asks rhetorically, "Shall I eat it now?"

Immediately a youngster down front, certainly not yet born in 1991, shouts out emphatically, "You better not!"

Anything succeeding so effectively for both children and adults has struck the right chords. This show is crammed with special moments.

There's Norman Munoz, Lowen Patigayon, and Michael Pa'ekukui in outrageous Filipina drag as the mean stepsisters and stepmother. There's Stephanie Sanchez as Maile — outraged at narrator Bryan Yamasaki's gender prejudice when she is forced to repair the macadamia-nut shortbread cottage on which she's been munching.

There's the six Menehunes' bumbling around their fish pond like an Abbot and Costello skit, and Denise-Aiko Chinen as a tai chi expert Fairy-God Tutu.

Nolan Hong and Elitei Tatafu Jr. are Da Prince and Da Oddah Prince, and a chorus of Bufos and Geckos sing and move scenery.