Review: Kimberly Akimbo at Broadway at the Hobby

Odd and quirky, musically smooth, emotionally resonant, wise, and a little raunchy (thanks to Aunt Debra), Kimberly Akimbo has racked up innumerable theater awards from the Tonys, Drama Desks, Off-Broadway Obies (Best Musical, Actress, Supporting Actress, Book, Score, Design). Now we know why.

If a very prescient A.I. process generated a contemporary hip musical, this would be it; although there’s nothing mechanical about the show. With its great beating heart at center stage (that would be 16-year-old Kimberly), a dysfunctional family straight out of a comic O’Neill drama, an outlaw aunt on the run, and teenagers spilling their angst and hormones across the stage, Kimberly shakes you up in the story’s comedy and pathos.

Kimberly, you see, suffers from a rare genetic disorder that ages her prematurely, about four-and-half years for every one of ours. She turns 16 at the beginning of the play, which would make her about 72 years old. She’s a granny in kids’ clothes. She goes to high school and has all the conflicting emotions of a teenager. Set that against her whacked-out family (Dad’s a drunk, Mom’s a pregnant hypochondriac, and libido-expressive Aunt Debra who arrives on the lam with another scheme to get rich quick), the tensions sing and dance most proficiently. The obvious moral, a heart breaker naturally, is Live for Today, time is passing, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Live Every Moment.

The most haunting line comes from “Our Disease,” sung to and by her young school posse (Grace Capeless, Skye Alyssa Friedman, Darron Hayes, Pierce Wheeler – all young pros). They want to get out of New Jersey like a bat out of hell, they can’t wait to grow up and experience life to its fullest. Kimberly tells them in a sort of dream sequence, “Getting older is my affliction, getting older is your cure.” It’s bittersweet and so true.

Even during the show, Kimberly ages. She has trouble walking near the end, and is admitted to a hospital where we think this show is inevitably going to end in tears. But the creators turn the tables on us, as they do throughout the show, and after the mailbox heist (Aunt Debra’s screwy check-washing plot), she and her nerdy crush Seth go on the adventure she’s been dreaming of for years. No doubt her last car trip, nevertheless she gets her dream. It’s her private Make-a-Wish. And a beautiful high on which to end the show. The show might end with our tears, but they are tears of joy as we smile for her courage, spirit, and grit. She also gets her first kiss. Bliss.

Adapted from the play by Tony-winner David Lindsay-Abaire (whose lyrics abound with juicy satire as they did in Shrek), with a pop and Broadway pastiche sound supplied by Tony-winner Jeanine Tesoro (Thoroughly Modern Millie; Caroline, or Change; Shrek), this musical — brought to Houston by Broadway at the Hobby — leaps into a soft imaginative fantasy that seems most real and down-to-earth.

The cast is superlative, as most Broadway tour performers are these days, with special mention to veteran Ann Morrison (the original Mary in Sondheim’s 1981 Merrily We Roll Along) as achingly sympathetic Kimberly; young Miguel Gil as nerd deluxe Seth; Jim Horgan and Laura Woyasz as clueless parents Buddy and Pattie; and, last but not least, scene-stealer Emily Koch as hot-to-trot Aunt Debra. She brings the house down as a criminal Auntie Mame, belting out her anthems “Better” and “How to Wash a Check.” She’s the life force Kimberly desperately needs, although Kimberly turns the tables on her in a most satisfying way at the end. They’re not relatives for nothing.

The production glides as if oiled under the direction of Jessica Stone, abetted with impressionistic choreography from Danny Mefford, and maestro Leigh Delano’s octet of an orchestra with orchestrations that include lone guitar, ukulele, and cello. It’s pristine and cuts to the heart.

Only one-and-a-half years from its Broadway closing, I think this show is destined to become a classic. It’s got the bones, the musical chops, and an inspiring, fantastic story that encapsulates teenage longing for something far off on the horizon. It speaks to us all. This is a Kimberly who will not grow old.

Kimberly Akimbo continues through September 21 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday; 2 p.m. Saturday; and 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Hobby Center, 800 Bagby. For more information, call 713-315-7625 or visit thehobbycenter.org or broadwayatthehobbycenter.com. $55-$131.