Theater Review: “Kimberly Akimbo” Flails Musically and Conceptually

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The five-time Tony Award-winning Kimberly Akimbo makes its first National Tour stop in Los Angeles to show us what all the fuss was about.

And to be honest, I’m still trying to figure that out.

Written by David Lindsay-Abaire (who won the Pulitzer Prize for his play “Rabbit Hole”), the show concerns a teenage girl named Kim (Carolee Carmello) who has a rare genetic condition that makes her age about four years for every year she’s alive. At sixteen, she looks like she looks 64 (although she doesn’t in the show).

She doesn’t have the greatest family life with an alcoholic father (Jim Hogan) and a distracted mother (Dana Steingold) who is focused on her current pregnancy.

At her new school, Kim doesn’t have any friends yet, but she is soon befriended by Seth (Miguel Gil), who finds her interesting. When he needs a lab partner, the two connect, as he feels a bit like an outsider, too.

See Also: Theatre Review: Who Really Is “The Girl From the North Country?”




Speaking of outsiders, there is a quartet of school peers: Delia (Grace Capeless), Teresa (Skye Alyssa Friedman), Martin (Darron Hayes), and Aaron (Pierce Wheeler), who are busy trying to perfect a “Dreamgirls” review for a local talent show.

Lastly, we meet Kim’s Aunt Debra (Emily Koch), a troubled and often IN-trouble felon who has been searching for her brother’s new home so she can move in. She is a scam artist and eventually lets Kim and her friends in on a scheme she is working on that she wants assistance with.

Phew! That’s a lot of people and several subplots to focus on, which feels like the biggest problem with the show.

Kim is the least interesting character in a show that bears her name. Her rare and fascinating disease isn’t explored and is only explained in the show’s second half when she and her lab partner have to make a presentation on the condition. There, we learn about the myriad of complications the condition presents, only one of which we ever see and which Kim recovers from within minutes.



The other characters all have their quirks:

Mom has a bunch of medical mishaps and is obsessed with recording messages to her unborn baby in case she dies. Dad struggles with alcoholism and dealing with something he and his wife decided to do that has clearly affected him. (No spoilers.) The four kids at school (which seem to be in another show altogether) include two gay kids and two straight kids, none of which really reveal this fact to each other, so confusion spews up when there are crushes among them. Seth is funny, but his interest in Kim, who presents as a much older woman, is another subject never explored. And then there’s Aunt Debra, who is quite a character, but she also feels like she stepped in from a different show.

The music by Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home”) and Lindsay-Abaire is sometimes clever lyrically but winds up being altogether unmemorable. It also feels like it was written by someone much younger than Lindsay-Abaire. With a set design that seems dragged in from a community theater production, somehow, the show feels like it was written by high-school kids who threw together a bunch of ideas and hoped they’d make a cohesive story.

Unfortunately, they didn’t. That is why I’m so baffled about Tony’s wins.



What I will say is the cast is uniformly good. Carmello is great and doesn’t overdo trying to act like a 16-year-old. She was believable and likable. Koch, as Aunt Debra, is a hoot, has a terrific voice, and brings an energy that the play needs – even though the character seems shoe-horned in. Gil, as Seth, is one of the standouts, creating a fully realized character and bringing a bit of gravitas to the story. The audience seemed to really take to him as well.

Overall, I’m not sure who this show is for. Its themes aren’t groundbreaking, and the conceit of the disease doesn’t really play that much into the story, so the concept is hard to pin down. It’s fairly light and fluffy, so those not looking for anything hard-hitting or deep will probably enjoy it. But overall, the pieces of this award-winning show were definitely “akimbo.”

“Kimberly Akimbo” runs through November 3 at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood.
For more information and tickets, visit www.broadwayinhollywood.com.




The post Theater Review: “Kimberly Akimbo” Flails Musically and Conceptually appeared first on We Live Entertainment.
 
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