"Slava's Snowshow" charms its audience by inviting us to become children again and to believe anything is possible in a fantasy world where a sigh can be immediately replaced by a smile.

A combination of mime and special effects, the show has returned to Honolulu for a 10-day run at the Hawai'i Theatre, where it engages audiences with paper snow, oversized beachballs and poignant vignettes. You'll also have the opportunity to be buried in a blizzard, snared in a gigantic spider web, and engulfed in stage fog.

While the technical effects invite everyone to experience spirited play, the short scenes pantomimed to a musical soundtrack unfold a collection of short fantasies that are both touching and puzzling.

The opening scene could easily fit into "Waiting for Godot." A sad-looking old fellow in potato sack pajamas shuffles into view trailing a long rope. At one end is a noose that he slips over his head. He then pulls up the rope's slack only to find at the other end ... another dour creature, also with his head in a noose.

Sad — yes, but funny, too. And after several such moments, we begin to see that much of life's sadness is bound up with humor and that often its calamities are no more than practical jokes.

The man at the other end of the rope is a droopy, Woody Allen-type mensch with a bulbous red nose. He literally enjoys a prolonged death scene after being shot through with arrows by shadowy, apocalyptic winged creatures. But during his exaggerated death throes, we're distracted and puzzled by counting three arrows going in, but only two arrows coming out.

With all this violence, calamity and despair, is this clown show suitable for small children? Absolutely! Since the action doesn't rely on words, it's accessible to all ages, and the kids at the opening-night performance were excited and thrilled.

There are a pair of pillow-soft telephones that adopt tangible personalities by talking gibberish, and a lovely scene in which an overcoat on a hanger becomes a believable character when embracing a clown.

While you may be threatened by a menacing transparent sphere and pelted by rain and snow, you will also be transported by Slava's magical touch into Snowshow's vivid and colorful parallel reality — at least for a generous hour.