Review: Carolee Carmello Enchants in Kimberly Akimbo Tour

How do you make a screwball comedy about a sweet 16-year-old girl who will be dead before 20? Just ask the creators of Kimberly Akimbo, a musical black comedy with overwhelming heart and humor. The national tour, now at the Pantages, manages to be both zany and grounded in tragic reality. That pathos emerges from the carefully constructed script by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, as well as Carolee Carmello’s stunning performance in the title role.

Based on Lindsay-Abaire’s 2001 play, Kimberly Akimbo focuses on Kim’s 16^th birthday just after she moves to a new town. She has a rare genetic disorder so her body ages at 4-5 times the normal rate. At 16, she has the organs of someone in their late ‘60s, and while other kids her age worry about pimples and prom dates, Kimberly knows death is creeping rapidly closer.  She meets an awkward boy at school (Miguel Gil) and finds a loving repose after many hectic years. But her bulldozer of an aunt, Debra (Emily Koch), brings the drama by attempting to make Kimberly and her new friends accomplices in check fraud.

The musical was first produced off-Broadway, and it still has that sensibility. The score, by Tony winner Jeanine Tesori and Lindsay-Abaire, is a blend of folk, light gospel, and tongue-twisting patter songs. Lindsay-Abaire’s book goes in unexpected directions, with morality thrown out the window. His heroine is running on fumes, and she plans to go out with a bang.

Her parents are wonderfully dysfunctional. Alcoholic Buddy (Jim Hogan) and about-to-burst Pattie (Dana Steingold) are anxious about their coming second child, and, though they claim to love Kim very much, they’re terrible parents. Debra is the kind of relative you escape your hometown to avoid – which is exactly what they’ve done. She’s a sociopath with no qualms about roping a group of kids, including her ill niece, into dangerous crimes. Yet the book treats no one like a villain. Everyone is just trying to survive.

Director Jessica Stone keeps the show from getting too maudlin or saccharine and brings together a talented cast of newcomers and Broadway stalwarts. Carmello is dynamic as Kim. She captures both the character’s mental youth and physical deterioration swiftly but without overemphasizing. Her voice is as powerful as ever. Steingold and Hogan embody multifaceted characters who are ill-equipped to handle their situations but are far from monsters. Koch is boisterous as the amoral rabble-rouser who rallies the troops for a really misguided task. Gil, as a geeky tuba player obsessed with word games, brings charm and innocence to the role of Kim’s first boyfriend. As the four classmates obsessed with show choir and each other, Grace Capeless, Skye Alyssa Friedman, Darron Hayes, and Pierce Wheeler are talented and adorable outsiders who still manage to find people they consider beneath them in the social pecking order.

Sarah Laux’s costumes, particularly Kim’s juvenile jumper and candy necklace, visualize the awkwardness of the character. David Zinn’s sets, especially the wallpaper in Kim’s house and the tacky Skateland sign with missing or mismatched letters, perfectly conveys New Jersey in the 1990s. Danny Mefford choreographs the cast to ice skate onstage in a classic, eye-drawing sequence.

Beyond that little bit of wizardry, Kimberly Akimbo uplifts without dazzle or any theater tricks. It’s just a great story told beautifully, enhanced by the magic of Carolee Carmello’s enchanting performance.