If musical flatulence competitions aren’t your cup of tea, “Shrek the Musical” isn’t for you.

Everyone else, read on.

“Shrek,” which opened Tuesday night in Shea’s Performing Arts Center, is a raunchy, lovingly written and surprisingly imaginative stage adaptation of the popular 2001 film.

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"Shrek the Musical"

Three stars

Continues through Sunday at Shea's Performing Arts Center, 646 Main St.

Tickets $30 to $65 (box office, Ticketmaster)

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It stars an ugly, crass but nonetheless sentimental ogre with sickly green skin, an appetite for squirrel gizzards and a penchant for flatulence. He sets off on a mission fraught with danger and populated with fairy tale characters, aided by a maniacal donkey, to rescue a beautiful princess and discover his own inner worth in the process.

Sounds like kids’ stuff, right? Well, not exactly. The goal of the “Shrek” franchise has always been to appeal simultaneously to the baser instincts of adults and the more genuine ones in children, with no one being the wiser.

The creators of this smartly conceived show, which like the film upon which it is based is more of a manic pastiche than an actual story, have wisely avoided the pitfalls of so many recent screen-to-stage adaptations. In translating the story of Shrek into music and dance, the show’s producers embraced the conventions of theater to create something fresh and freshly funny.

The show is full of only-in-the-theater tricks, from the fact that the phenomenal comic actor David F. M. Vaughn plays and puppets the character of the vertically challenged Lord Farquaad entirely on his knees to a simple sequence of dancing rats executed by actors with rat dolls for shoes. The use of puppetry, nowhere near “Lion King” proportions, is consistently charming and sometimes stunning.

Just as Dreamworks’ film version of “Shrek” was full of sly nods to rival Disney and send-ups of its conventions and popular characters, “Shrek the Musical” is loaded to the point of saturation with references to musical theater history both subtle and overt.

There’s “A Chorus Line,” honored with a few bars in the show-stopper “What’s Up Duloc,” a number that finds Vaughn’s hilariously portrayed Lord Farquaad subbing in for the title character of “Springtime for Hitler,” from Mel Brooks’ “The Producers.”

In one particularly memorable scene, a dragon guarding the entrance to Fiona’s tower turns into a mythological, fire-breathing version of Effie White, the put-upon main character in “Dreamgirls.”

That scene illustrates the almost ineffable weirdness of the musical’s overall appeal. It seems instantly ridiculous to see a gargantuan dragon puppet manipulated by several black-clad puppeteers suddenly burst into a wanna-be Motown torch song about its feelings for a talking donkey.

But somehow, it works.

There’s a point, though, at which send-up after send-up can become tedious, especially when you realize there’s not a whole lot there to support it story-wise.

Eric Petersen’s softly sung but loudly spoken Shrek is as well-acted and expressed as you could reasonably expect from a man caked in green prostheses. As Fiona, Sandra Denise is his comic match, shining in numbers like the drop-dead funny “Morning Person.”

The huge supporting cast of fairy tale creatures, who get their big dance number in the boisterous “Freak Flag,” are excellent, especially Aymee Garcia’s voicing of the gingerbread man. But Vaughn, as Farquaad, runs away with the show even on those stubby legs of his.