The cast of “A Wrinkle In Time.”

When it comes to things like personified stars, blind, tentacled beasts and disembodied brains, it’s pretty hard to compete with the imagination. But Round House Theatre’s production of A Wrinkle In Time is up for the challenge.

The result is a whimsical, abstract approach to the science fiction-inspired children’s story, with puppetry and digital effects standing in for the pictures in your mind. If you’re of my generation or earlier, it’s likely you have some experience with the epic tale of three kids who saved the world long before it was Harry and Hermione’s job.

John Glore’s adaptation condenses the work, but sticks largely to the text when it comes to the story (a few unfamiliar lines are thrown in here and there, largely for comic relief), alternating between a narrated approach and letting the characters perform the action. The structure works well when adapting Wrinkle to the stage, especially for a younger audience, though the early narrated moments have a bit of a sing-song quality before the performers relax into the story.

That story surrounds those three kids: Meg (Erin Weaver), a nerdy teenager who doesn’t really fit in, her precocious but misunderstood younger brother Charles Wallace (Jacob Land), and the seemingly cool kid Calvin (Davis Hasty), who the pair stumbles on in the woods and discovers he isn’t so different from them after all. They’re propelled into action by three eccentric beings who tell them that their missing father was onto something with his studies in time travel. Now, it’s time to save him.