cutesy

The cutesy performance shtick around a shoestring variety show — imagine Pee-wee’s Playhouse without the bewitching oddity — grows wearying.

It’s a challenge to write from the perspective of a child without being arch or cutesy — stories about kids learning about the real world can degrade to plainspoken YA or cheap melodrama.

Even a tiny robot — DG-33, sort of cutesy spin on a trash compactor — has developed some quirks, namely a sassy Southern accent.

Not that “The Annihilation of Fish” has any patience for the cutesy tendencies that sometimes attend love stories about people with mental health problems.

The truth is, many of those cutesy have-to-have garden gifts look pretty at the store but serve little purpose in the real world.