Cleverly Akimbo

 

Kimberly and Seth, photo @ Sara Krulwich

Musicals about adolescents are often a losing proposition right out of the gate. Performers who look believably young often cannot express the range of emotions to act believably young. This problem felled Mean Girls and The Prom, to use recent examples.

Kimberly Akimbo, the wonderful new musical now running on Broadway, offsets this problem by having the sixteen-year old main character played by 63 year old Victoria Clark. The chief conceit David Lindsay-Abaire's book is that Kimberly Levaco has progeria, which causes her to age rapidly. She is a normal teenager trapped in a grandma's body. She is not expected to live past her teens.

You'd expect a musical with this subject matter to be sad? Sentimental? Maudlin? You'd be wrong. Kimberly Akimbo was one of the funniest, most joyous theater experiences in recent memory. You leave the theater feeling uplifted and hopeful. 

Part of the success of the musical is Jeanine Tesori's score. It mimics the bubblegum pop that was so popular among teens in the '90s (the show takes place in blue-collar New Jersey in 1999). The score is bouncy and happy, with wonderful earworms like "How to Wash a Check" and "Better." The tuneful,  accessible score makes Kimberly avoid feeling like a prestige musical.

Kimberly and her parents, photo @ Sara Krulwich

The second reason for the success of the musical is the sharply drawn, sympathetic characters. Kimberly is surrounded by a group of eccentric, dysfunctional people. Her father is a charming alcoholic, her mother a heavily pregnant hypochondriac who just wants her new baby to be "normal," her Aunt Debra a felon and scammer. Her one friend at school is the nerdy Seth, who plays the tuba and loves anagrams. Kimberly and Seth bond doing a biology project. "Cleverly Akimbo" is the anagram Seth comes up for Kimberly's name. Four high school students round out the cast as a sort of Greek chorus and catalyst for some of the plot.

The storyline for Kimberly Akimbo is a bit contrived (I won't give away the main storyline except to tease that it involves Make-a-Wish Foundation, a singing contest, a biology project, a mailbox, stolen checks, and a bank heist) and to be honest the second act kind of meanders. But it's less important than the journey every character takes from curtain to curtain. The book is wonderfully witty too, with a lot of absurdist humor.

Bonnie Milligan, photo @ Ahron R. Foster

The acting is pitch perfect. Justin Cooley is sweet and awkward as Seth (hard to believe he's only 19), Bonnie Milligan a total scene stealer as the amoral hustler Debra. Steven Boyer and Alli Mauzey as Kimberly's parents turned what could have been very unsympathetic characters into lovable misfits. 

Most of all, Victoria Clark is probably going to win every award in the book for her portrayal of Kimberly. She doesn't just mimic the mannerisms and body language of a teen, she actually embodies the spirit of the sad little 16-year-old. But you don't pity Kimberly for a moment -- she's too hardy, too insightful, too resilient to feel sorry for. She's the voice of normalcy in her dysfunctional family, and her wants are so relatable. Tesori and Lindsay-Abaire also give Kim wonderful songs, from the classic "I Want" song "Make a Wish" (Kimberly writes a letter to the Make-a-Wish Foundation) to a tearjerking 11-o-clock number ("Before I Go") to a quietly hopeful final song. Clark's beautiful soprano caresses the music perfectly.

I don't know how long Kimberly Akimbo will run -- the mezzanine was depressingly empty last night. But I do know that this is one of the best new musicals I've ever seen, and I hope this production finds an audience.