STAGE REVIEW : KIDS ROLL OUT MAGIC CARPET BAND

The noise level in the lobby of UCLA’s Schoenberg Theatre on Sunday was rising. Children ages 5 and up, wearing everything from mini-punk to junior yuppie, clutched Cabbage Patch dolls and parents’ hands or made energetic forays to the water fountain.

It would take quite a show to bring this diverse group together. Bright costumes, colorful sets, lots of spectacle and don’t-give-’em-time-to-get-bored razzmatazz should do it--right?

Perhaps. But that’s not the Magic Carpet Band’s style.

For an intermissionless 90 minutes, with no sets, no props, no costume changes (the group wears what look like modified umpire uniforms with kneepads), the five-member ensemble, led by director Jim Mairs, captivates its young audience with “Kids’ Writes Live,” a collection of songs, poems and stories written by children and presented exactly as written.

(Careless spellers, beware: “Told” can become “tolded” and the plural of friend may turn out to be “friendies.”)

On a stage that has only microphones, an electric keyboard, guitars and a piano, the Magic Carpet Band--Mairs, Wynn White, Carlo Grossman, John Rousseau and Steve Riffkin--takes turns providing accompaniment and sound effects while presenting such dramas as “The Gargoyle Conspiracy,” a ghostly tale by 11-year-old Dan Radetsky, and “Runaway Gorilla” by Kevin Cormack, 8, about a boy who befriends the runaway, goes to Africa and becomes a wild boy for a while. The story ends with a solemn “I never told anyone but you” addressed to the audience.

The show offers easy-to-identify-with themes: the fear and confusion of being different; having parents who fight, or are divorced (“I live with my mom, and Dad is mad”); being an only child or having siblings who infuriate.

There are sheer flights of fancy: Toys break-dance on Christmas Eve; a man from space moves in, and in “The Dog Party” by James Dziezynski, 5, cavorting canines are joined by a friend (“We ate nice steak and drank water and we danced around. . . . Then the dogs went home and I went home”).

More prosaic subjects included 6-year-old Crystal Olsen’s “Cookies” and 12-year-old Stephanie Conte’s “French Fries,” which met with obvious gastronomical appreciation.

The most poignant piece, sung in haunting ballad style, was “Baby of Today” by Monique Jahn, 13, who asks why children are brought into an increasingly dangerous world, then wistfully suggests the answer may be found “within the very next born, within the very next baby.”

The Magic Carpet Band never oversteps its bounds, presenting the youthful authors’ works with respect. No hint of self-conscious cuteness intrudes. From the music, composed by Mairs and Riffkin, to the mime who enhances each piece yet never distracts, this is exceptional children’s theater.

Presented by Junior Programs of California, “Kids’ Writes” ends its all-too-short tour of Southern California at 2 p.m. Saturday at Citrus College’s Haugh Performing Arts Center, (818) 963-9411.