Who hasn’t had a friend who’s a pain in the butt, who’s never satisfied, who’s always pushing the limits, but worth it anyway? That’s the premise of SCT’s adaptation of Laura Numeroff’s 1985 book, in which a boy, called Boy, who’s left alone with an adventure comic book, is visited by an endearing but increasingly ornery mouse whose demands escalate from cookie to milk to straw to haircut to pajamas to . . . well, you get the picture. Short, egg-shaped Don Darryl Rivera, who played a pencil-eating rat in SCT’s I Was a Rat! earlier this year, plays Mouse in a tone of chirpy goodwill, even as he unintentionally tears the house apart. MJ Sieber’s Boy treads a sympathetic line between responsible “man of the house” and fun-seeking kid seduced by Mouse’s antics. Most of the laughter-inducing moments, of which there are many, involve Mouse’s problems of scale (e.g., the straw is so large its swiveling knocks him off balance), Mouse’s grandiosity, and Mouse’s catastrophic attempts to be helpful, which result in imaginative choreography of destruction and the wholesale wreck of the formerly tidy kitchen. Along the way Mouse demonstrates some pretty impressive magic tricks, thespian gusto, and interpretive dance. Sieber shines in mimicry and straight-man dismay. Media mischief in a mirror, transformative lighting effects (the kitchen becomes a jungle), and graphic sounds enlarge the imaginary world well beyond the stage; and an image in a mirror takes on a (video)life of its own as Mouse mugs for it. Don’t mistake intermission for the end, as I did; Act 2 cuts loose even more now that the characters are old friends. Performances are followed by a charming “talk back” with the actors. MARGARET FRIEDMAN

Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Oct. 15. Continues through Nov. 29, 2009