The Judge (Hunter Marchant, right) and the rich peasants (from left, Kaleb Noggle, Charlene Stinson and Taylor Marchant) confer about the possible undersea riches during the story of the “The Little Peasant” in “Story Theatre” at North Bend High School. World Photos by Lou Sennick

NORTH BEND — Cinderella might want to avoid going out this weekend.

Ditto Little Red Riding Hood.

Sleeping Beauty should sleep in.

These and any other fairytale characters who may be in the area are advised to stay far away from North Bend High School during its production of “Story Theatre,” which opens tonight.

It’s not safe.

Across the play’s 10 skits, adapted from Grimm Brothers’ tales and Aesop fables, more than a dozen characters meet violent deaths, two are seriously maimed, and nearly all others are ensnared in a web of deceptions where at least 30 lies are told.

Just like the original Grimm Brothers stories, before Disney cleaned them up.

“It’s a very strange play,” said director Marcia Marchant, the new drama coach at NBHS. “It stays true to the actual Grimm Brothers tales, without being too gory. … Hopefully, it’s given in a light enough way that it’s appealing to audiences of all ages.”

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the play is the constant narration. The characters tell their stories to a far greater extent than they perform them. No action is left unarticulated. Rather than heavily adapting these classic and obscure tales for theater, Paul Sills chose to preserve the simple, direct style of the fable.

Doing something simple was part of the plan for Marchant. A school production was canceled last spring when drama teacher Terri Bond left the school due to illness, and the program remained in limbo until Marchant, who doesn’t work in another capacity at the school, was hired in September. Marchant said it was important to get something up and running quickly.

“Terri Bond built a great program here,” Marchant said. “She’s left a standard we’re going to work to maintain and surpass.”

Marchant compared the show to “Saturday Night Live” because of its skit format, with a cast of 11 moving in and out of a total of 68 roles.

There are no impersonations of Sarah Palin, but perhaps if SNL did a show set in medieval Europe … there would be a lot of jokes about the exceptional level of gullibility widespread among the characters who fall for the tricksters’ ruses.

A wife who can’t tell her husband from an impostor? A cowherd who can’t tell a real calf from a wooden carving? Really? Cowherding might not be a job that demands a high level of education, but even a cow can distinguish a live animal and a child’s toy. They must grow some fine tea leaves in the Enchanted Forest.

The suspension of disbelief must begin with the very first line of the play’s opening story, “The Little Peasant,” which describes a village where all but one of the peasants are rich.

The Little Peasant (Anthony Slaight) is the sole poor villager, whose frequent schemes to get ahead always backfire, until he finds success by convincing all the other villagers to drown themselves.

He and his wife (Brittany Blochlinger) can’t afford any livestock, so the Little Peasant asks his cousin for a carved likeness of a calf, which he sends with a cowherd (Megan Fredrick) out to graze. But when it’s time to return home, the wooden calf doesn’t come when called, so the cowherd leaves it to graze longer. When he returns empty-handed, the Little Peasant takes him to a judge (Hunter Marchant), who orders the cowherd to give a replacement cow.

Shortly thereafter, the Little Peasant waits out a storm outside a farmhouse, where he spies the farmer’s wife (Lauren Dawson) cavorting with the parson (Taylor Marchant) at a table filled with delicacies. When the farmer (Joel Bolton) comes home, they hide the fancy hors d’oeuvres (and the parson) all over the house.

The Little Peasant uses his knowledge of the hidden items to con the farmer out of 300 thalers, but upon returning home, his efforts to explain the sudden wealth to his neighbors (Krys Shipp, Jordanna Harvey, Kaleb Noggle and Charlene Stinson) lead to a conviction for treachery and a death sentence.

It’s a tough jam, and the Little Peasant might have a harder time getting out of it if he were not the only villager endowed with a brain.

Other stories include “The Bremen Town Musicians,” where four animals fight off a band of robbers for possession of an abandoned house; “Is He Fat?” where another misfortune befalls the parson; “The Robber Bridegroom,” where a girl (Harvey) finds herself betrothed to a cannibal (Slaight); and “Henny Penny” where several fowl encounter a fox (Bolton).

The highlights of the play come in the second half, especially with “The Fisherman and His Wife,” simultaneously the most unrealistic and believable tale in the collection. A poor fisherman (Bolton) catches a flounder (Dawson) who claims to be an enchanted prince and asks to be released. The fisherman obliges, noting that he always throws back talking fish. But when he tells his wife (Fredrick) about it, she castigates him for failing to procure a wish and sends him back to find the flounder, beginning a chain of escalating wishes that leave her insatiable.

Also in the second half, the cleverest trickery is found in “The Master Thief,” where a prodigal son (Dawson) tries to prove he can pull off any heist, including another incident involving the parson.

Though the 10 tales are ostensibly unrelated, there are some characters that carry through; Taylor Marchant appears as the parson in four skits, while both Dawson and Slaight have multiple roles as tricksters. Marcia Marchant said she tried to combine the roles in a way conducive to developing characters, almost none of whom have names.

At a running time of an hour and a half, it’s never long before any of them meet their usually unpleasant fates.