Will success spoil Kimberly Akimbo? That concern inevitably accompanied the announcement of the show’s well-deserved transfer to Broadway. Those of us who saw the intimate Atlantic Theatre production a year ago became instant loyalists, reluctant to see this exquisite, peculiar work pumped up for the masses.
Good news: Everything is bigger and brighter, and lands even better. It’s still a tender, hilarious character study, but playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (the book is based on his 2001 play), composer Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home and more), and director Jessica Stone have tinkered with it cleverly to broaden its appeal.
Playing the title role in the Atlantic premiere, Victoria Clark came across as rather subdued and depressed – understandably! At sixty-three, she’s charged with portraying a sixteen-year old afflicted with a super-rare condition which has aged her in quadruple time, with a concomitantly accelerated life expectancy. Kimberly’s prognosis means that she looks seventyish and will likely die within the coming year – her first at a new high school, as it happens. Her family had to switch New Jersey towns (yes, that much maligned state is in for a comic drubbing in the opening number) after some kind of fracas, vaguely hinted at, went down in the old one.
[Read Bob Verini’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Whatever! This new kid in school is shy, to be sure, but not as socially awkward as some of her contemporaries (a relative term here). Kimberly finds friends among some fellow dweebs, four of whom are engaged in a teen version of the forest scene in Midsummer Night’s Dream: they comprise a full circle of crushes, each unrequited, for reasons hilariously obvious to us onlookers.
Kimberly finds herself drawn to the ultimate outsider: Seth (Justin Cooley), a sweet, sincere, tuba-playing, Elvish-speaking devotee of the “puzzleistic arts” who bestows on her the anagrammatic nickname of the title. “I like how you see the world,” she muses, as he laboriously pretzels the letters of her name. “I like your point of view. A little sly. A little strange. A little bit askew.” Puppyish, filterless (“I thought you were a new lunch lady,” he confesses), Seth courts Kimberly as a potential project partner, proposing that they co-create a presentation about her disease.
Awkward! Kimberly abreacts at first, but the assignment – plus the growing circle of friends that comes with it – gradually emboldens her to address the rampant dysfunction that infects her home life.
Kimberly’s father is a beer-chugging alcoholic – never the most promising option for a “comic” role, but Steven Boyer carries it off splendidly, exhibiting just enough of Buddy’s well-intentioned protectiveness (and guilt) to offset the character’s paternal shortcomings.
Kimberly’s mom is a nightmare – which is to say, a comic motherlode. A flaming narcissist of the hypochondriacal variety, Pattie (Alli Mauzey, blithely offhanded) sports vanity casts on both forearms – to which she manages to add a leg brace. Oh, and she’s very very pregnant. “Kim’s fine,” she insists, ever determined to pull focus. “I’m the the one with problems.” Attendant benefits include the power to wreak untold psychological damage.
Fortunately, there’s a savior of sorts lurking in the wings, or rather, peeking in the window. That’s Kimberly’s larcenous Aunt Debra (ebullient Bonnie Milligan), intent on launching her latest scam from the family basement. “It’s a great opportunity … only a little illegal,” she reassures her reluctant niece. Having spotted the clueless lambs in Kimberly’s circle at school, Debra even has a crew in mind. The kids’ motivation? Show choir outfits don’t come cheap.
Anyone who saw the initial production probably spent the past year fervently praying that Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori might manage to interpolate a few more solos for Milligan, beyond the show-stopping “Better” (“When opportunity knocks, when possibility calls … you gotta take the reins, break the rules, so you can make your shitty life better!”). As “Belting Bonnie” proved in 2018’s short-lived Head over Heels, Milligan can rock the rafters. I perked up at the Act 2 opener – “How to Wash a Check,” a Rube Goldbergian assembly-line number – but it proves a bit of a fakeout.
On the plus side: With all the roles judiciously distributed, everyone gets to shine. That Clark sings exquisitely is a given – and if a operatic tone sometimes sneaks into her teenage angst, it comes across like a hint of her senility breaking through. Cooley, now all of eighteen, has grown into and deepened his role. Seth’s lament “The Good Kid” (capped off by a tuba blat) speaks for all the young strivers unheralded at home – a category in which Kimberly also deserves a gold star.
The second act gets darker, in counterpoint to Kimberly’s growing self-confidence. Treated by her family as if, as a goner, she’s practically out of the picture, she starts to stand up for herself. In what little time is left, she gets proactive on her own behalf. There’s a still, quiet moment toward the play’s end when Kimberly gazes out toward the audience, caught up in some delicious imagining. It’s a look of pure bliss. The whole theatre falls silent: we’re transfixed.
Is the takeaway message that petty crime pays? It certainly does here. Everyone involved in the show deserves credit for pulling off a delicate balancing act between raucous comedy and staggering pathos. Its many pleasures aside, Kimberly Akimbo helps to advance a new vision of what musicals can be. Abandoning the trite and formulaic, the creators and cast have brought to life a narrative that’s resplendently unique yet capable of striking a universal chord – while sparking the laughter that we all need to get by.
Kimberly Akimbo opened November 10, 2022, at the Booth Theatre. Tickets and information: kimberlyakimbothemusical.com
