By Adam Rafferty
2023 Tony Award winning musical Kimberly Akimbo is a charmingly sweet, funny and wildly untypical story of a sixteen-year-old girl, the eponymous Kimberly (Marina Prior). She lives with an ageing disease, similar to progeria, that causes her body to age at four and half times the normal rate, giving her the appearance of a woman in her sixties and drastically shortening her lifespan.
Kimberly shares all the dreams and foibles of any teenager, unsure of their place in the world and how to negotiate the lows and highs of youthful romance, but with the added hurdle of being an adolescent who doesn’t look like one. If that were her only challenge in life however, this story would be a relatively typical one, but playwright David Lindsay-Abaire (who adapted this story from his own 2001 play of the same name) makes poor Kimberly’s situation infinitely tougher, by giving her a screw-up, and screwball, family who she seems to provide more of the parenting for than she receives.
Her dad Buddy (Nathan O’Keefe) is a drunk-driving wastrel who leaves her waiting hours in the snow outside the skating rink while he makes ridiculous bets in a local bar. Her mother Pattie (Christie Whelan Browne) is a hypochondriac in the late stages of a pregnancy with two wrists in plaster due to carpal tunnel surgery. With a 25% chance of having a child with the same condition as Kimberly, the intended birth seems ill advised, as though Kimberly’s parents are lining up a replacement child.
Through a wonderfully playful and melodious score by Jeanne Tesori (of Fun Home, Shrek The Musical and Thoroughly Modern Millie fame), Kimberly’s parents do eventually demonstrate the expected levels of parental love and care for their daughter, despite their failings, as O’Keefe and Whelan Browne deliver perfectly timed comedy and equally perfect vocals.
But when Pattie’s unwelcome ex-con sister Debra (Casey Donovan) turns up at the local library and convinces Kimberly to leave the door of their home open, so she can sneak in and set up shop for a cheque washing scheme, the story gets extra sweary and both the drama and comedy ramp up exponentially. The current queen of Australian musical theatre, Donovan shows off her impeccable vocal skills while also giving a flat-out hilarious performance of the dodgy auntie with a complete lack of scruples.
It’s the balance of humour and pathos that make Kimberly Akimbo the storytelling success that it is, for all the crazy goings on around this young girl serve to highlight the tragedy of her shortened life span. Prior is wonderfully convincing as a teenager trapped in an older woman’s body and through her downtrodden, yet youthfully hopeful interpretation she elicits plenty of audience empathy. Likewise, the subject of her furtive high school romance – tuba playing Seth (Darcy Wain) – is unselfconsciously charming and lands his comic delivery with the skill of a veteran.
Kimberly’s school friends Martin (Marty Alix), Delia (Allycia Angeles), Teresa (Alana Iannace) and Aaron (Jacob Rozario) provide a sort of Greek Chorus, regularly skating their way through scenes to deliver gorgeous harmonies, when they aren’t playing a bizarre love quadrangle! Their interconnected relationships are a silly, but fun premise that sprinkles an additional level of sweetness on this story’s birthday cake.
Director Mitchell Butel has created a wonderfully joyous and smooth flowing production that focuses firmly on the ample comedy in Lindsay-Abaire’s heart-filled story. For the most part that works perfectly, but a second act reveal that proved to have greater impact on Broadway is somewhat lost here, and Kimberly’s progressing ill-health doesn’t present as gradually as it could.
A 1999 time setting allows set designer Jonathon Oxlade to take inspiration from 90s Memphis style graphic design with oversized geometrics serving as a vivid and fun backdrop. Ailsa Paterson takes that inspiration and runs even further with it in her colourful and playfully patterned costume designs, positioning the look of the show squarely in a pre-millennial era, but misses the mark with an anachronistic Juicy couture tracksuit.
Kimberly Akimbo is a small show by Broadway musical definitions, but with its message of living your life to the fullest while you have it, rolled up in cheeky humour and adorably melodic tunes, gives it a heart bigger than most. If this bittersweet tale doesn’t leave you charmed by its end, you might have to check if you have a heart of your own!
Image: Sam Roberts
