Words can be as caressing or as destructive as wind.

• Here is a special kids theater version of Artifacts. Because, as Mrs. Lovejoy would exhort: Won’t somebody please think of the children?

• Enter the Middle Earth world of Bilbo Baggins, elves, goblins, The Shire, dwarves and Gollum at ARIEL Theatrical, the prolific and super kid-friendly theater company in a recharging Oldtown Salinas. They’re doing The Hobbit 7pm Friday, 2pm and 7pm Saturday, and 2pm Sunday. I would love to see a 4-year-old version of Gandalf bellow, “You shall not pass!” 775-0976.

• When Paper Wing does their version of a fairy tale, it’s usually a subversive number that toys with the precepts of fairy tales in a dark and campy way. They seem to be at it again with PAN, named after, but not starring, Peter Pan. It’s described this way: “Jane Darling, teenage daughter of Wendy, has never seen anything quite like Neverland. She’s a very long way from home, spirited away by a dark fairy and a couple of no-good pirates.” It runs 8pm Fridays and Saturdays through Aug. 8. 905-5684.

• Western Stage is staging Stephen Sondheim’s grown-up fairytale musical Into the Woods 7:30pm Friday-Saturday, 2pm Sunday, through Aug. 1. Which gives me entry into a beef I have with the 2014 Disney movie version starring Meryl Streep. It was rated PG and marketed as a kids movie, but it was so not a kids movie. Disney supposedly toned down the sexual innuendo, the violent deaths, the philandering of The Prince. But even so, what they had on their hands was an adult movie. Not adult as in violence or gratuitous nudity, but as in dealing with issues like fidelity, fulfillment, revenge, grief, anger, deception, desire. Western Stage says they will do a more faithful version of Sondheim’s musical. Caveat parentis. 755-6816.

• Pacific Repertory Theatre’s Golden Bough is the host stage for a more kid-friendly theater piece. It’s called Dr. Mecurio’s Mythical Marvels & Bestiary, written and directed by puppeteer Ricki Vincent, and running 7:30pm Thursday-Saturday, 2pm Sunday, til July 19. It’s an old-fashioned, steampunk, pulp adventure about a snake-oil salesman and his motley band of merry tricksters. The costumes are stylish, the puppets are whimsical, the sound design needs some work, the shadow puppet projection is clever and a bit nebulous, but it’s a fun yarn with a warm heart, and that counts for a lot. And the kids can mount the stage at the end and get up close with the puppets and actors. They love that stuff. 622-0100.