An old woman sits on a stage, facing the audience. She pretends to do laundry in a “river” made of two blue ribbons held lengthwise by two stagehands clad in black.

Suddenly, they all shift positions. The woman spins around to lie on her back, her hands still dipping clothes into the silky ribbons. It’s as if the audience is now getting a bird’s-eye view of the scene.

The quick shift of perspective might be familiar on television or in the movies. On stage it also works, thanks to Japanese theater techniques. Honolulu Theatre for Youth is bringing those techniques, both traditional and modern, back to its stage in a revival of its acclaimed production of “Anime Momotaro,” which opens Friday.

With new set designs and props, new sound effects and new anime-related gags, fans who saw the original production in 2011 would be well served to return to enjoy the Japanese folk tale about a boy who emerged from a peach and saved his family.

“This version is very much heightened and intensified from the first time we did it because we’ve learned things along the way,” said Eric Johnson, artistic director of Honolulu Theatre for Youth and director of this production. “Going through it a second time has given us the ability to refine some of the design elements. We’re also adding another actor, and we’ve added to the script as well.”

Johnson and HTY’s Alvin Chan developed the original adaptation of the “Momotaro” legend in 2010. It drew sellout crowds in Honolulu, then was taken to the mainland, where it won the prestigious Helen Hayes Award for Theatre for Young Audiences in 2014.

“When we did this the first time, our most joyous moment was seeing the local Japanese grandma come, saying, ‘You’re going to love the Momotaro story,’ and they’re sharing the traditional story and traditional forms with their grandchild,” he said. “And the young person gets in here and they’re like, ‘Oh, this is just like the cartoons I watch!’

“We have fire fans for when a person gets angry, and we have emoji that pop up and we have boulders that explode … but it’s all done through this mix of classical Japanese theater and storytelling and contemporary aesthetics.”

Chan, who portrays the hero Momotaro and other roles in the hourlong production, studied in Japan for three months in 2010 to prepare the play before its 2011 debut.

“The trick is, How do you do cartoons in real life?” Chan said. “I think nowadays Japanese anime is so mainstream that even Americans go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s those cartoons.’ So for us it became, How do we take some of that and still keep it real? So actors will kind of bust into a pose and react to that pose, then come back to reality.”

It’s been challenging trying to figure out whether a traditional or modern style works best for a particular situation.

“It’s a lot of trial and error,” Chan said. “You can go huge with the ideas, but sometimes simplicity’s better. Like the river: It’s just a piece of blue cloth, and we don’t need much more that. We thought about putting a white bow on it, to make whitewash, but that’s too much.”

Other circumstances called for spicing up classical traditions. The ninjalike stagehands are taken from ancient Japanese theater, and their attire suggests they are to be considered invisible by the audience. Usually, they are stone-faced on stage, “but at the same time you can see us, and so I’m using a lot of traditional Japanese movement for all the stagehand characters so that they’re not just walking around,” Chan said.

“Momotaro” is ripe for a diverse and colorful treatment. Beloved in Japan for the heroic title character, the folk tale tells the story of a young boy who comes to his parents via a giant peach, then joins forces with a dog, a monkey and a bird to confront cruel ogres in a battle.

The battle is sometimes portrayed in a violent, gruesome manner, but different versions abound. Chan and Johnson have developed a version that tones down the violence.

“We talked about how this could be a piece about how our modern values have changed but still be about an imbalance of power,” Johnson said. “There’s a revelation that we hope is a more contemporary idea of how to confront an imbalance of power and resolve issues. We’re hoping it’s doing the same thing that tale in Japan was doing, but in a manner that is appropriate to the times.”

That doesn’t mean there’s no fighting. In fact, there’s an extended fight scene, but the violence is given a humorous twist when the battle is fought in reverse. “There’s this huge fight that has led to arms getting ripped off and a horn gets cut off the ogre’s head,” Johnson said, “We do it faster and in reverse, so the arm goes back on and everything.”