STAGE REVIEW : The Funniest New Kids on the Block

One of the toughest things for an adult actor is to play a kid. The enthusiasm, the naivete--now there’s a stretch for a performer. “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” is probably the best example of this kind of material. But move over, Charlie Brown, because “Bunk Bed Brothers” is the newest and funniest--and yes, sweetest--kid on the block.

The show at the Complex Theater, by Pat Hazell and Matt Goldman, is so wholesome it’s disarming. It’s like a joyous hayride into childhood.

Two brothers, played with an off-the-wall charm by Charles Coplin and writer Hazell, return home for a family reunion. Nothing has stirred their old room, with its bunk beds and plaid bedspreads, since they left. Their toys and treasure chests and, in this case, the paraphernalia of a boys’ room in the ‘70s litter the room.

The flotsam includes a poster of “Starsky and Hutch,” old orange Hot Wheels tracks and, in a piquant touch, a Chinese checkers board propped up next to the hi-fi. In a musical moment drenched with nostalgia, one of the brothers spins a platter of Herb Alpert’s “Tijuana Brass.”

A third character, the brothers’ father, makes brief, boisterous sorties into the room in the jocular bellowing of Clive Rosengren. The brothers, in fact, come off as chips off the old block.

Director David Hodge has given the performers broad latitude (too much so in the instance of the high-decibel shouting of the dad), and Hazell and Coplin even break theater’s fourth wall on occasion--but never to the detriment of the production. Even a pizza guy (a real pizza guy!) enters from the theater lobby and climbs on stage with a pepperoni-and-cheese for the characters.

As the brothers who always remain adults but regress into childhood games and pranks, Hazell and Coplin manage to create character at the same time they’re reliving what it was like to be Cub Scout age and making life hell for each other. In the course of the bedlam, there are snide little throwaway lines about their teen-age romances and rivalries, and you come to know them unusually well. It’s quite an achievement and very deceptive.

The effect is actually like a magic show. The fact that these brothers had a neat childhood and we can still find it dramatic and theatrical is the show’s uncanny strength. They achieve the innocence of “The Wonder Years,” but for once in theater, the word sitcom is not a dirty word. This too could be a quality-TV series-in-the-making.

The most hilarious moment occurs when the brothers don men’s underwear over their heads as underwater deep-sea helmets, and the most sublime is when the pair cavort to the sound effects record of mad tapping feet and staccato machine-gun fire.

The fade-out is over the top. Daring the impossible, the creators go for the furthest galaxy. The upper bunk bed, with a brother sitting on top and with John F. Kennedy on the hi-fi exhorting us to the heavens, literally rises with a whoosh to the roof of the stage and a night sky filled with stars.

When you’re on a roll, why not dream? These guys have the touch.

“Bunk Bed Brothers,” the Complex Theater, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends June 30. $10. (213) 286-0666. Running time: 1 hour,30 minutes.