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| Micah Greene, Andrew Winson & Sheriden Thomas in "Kimberly Akimbo" (photo: Sharman Altshuler) |
There are two arresting images on the stage of the
Calderwood Pavilion's Plaza Theatre at the beginning of Moonbox
Productions' latest offering,“Kimberly Akimbo”, the 2000 comedy
by Pulitzer Prize winning South Boston native David Lindsay-Abaire
(“Rabbit Hole”, “Fuddy Meers”, “Shrek the Musical”, “High
Fidelity”, “Good People”). One is a clock on the wall of a
disheveled living room, the other a fast food take-out bag on a
kitchen table. The clock has no hands and the container sports a logo
(designed by a former Moonbox nonprofit partner, Youth Design) from a
local drive-through by the name of Zippy Burger. They're emblematic
of the attention to detail that this production pays, and it pays
off. It's a wacky and weird hoot, especially if you're into anagrams
(but more about that later). It's the story of lonely sixteen year
old Kimberly (Sheriden Thomas), who has quite a lot on her plate. She
has to deal with her chaotically dysfunctional family, consisting of
her very pregnant hypochondriacal mother Pattie (Micah Greene), her
wacky aunt Debra (Shana Dirik) who's lately been living in the public
library, and her phlegmatic alcoholic gas station attendant father
Buddy (Andrew Winson). Not only that, but she's suffering from a rare
disease (referred to as “progeria without the dwarfism”) that
causes her to age four and a half times faster than normal. (And then
there's the mysteriously abrupt move they've made from Secaucus to
Bogota, New Jersey). Kimberly is befriended by a schoolmate, the nerdy
Jeff (Lucas Cardona), who works at the aforementioned burger joint,
is neglected by his father, wants to make her the subject of his
writing project, and is quite obsessed with word games. (He tells her
that her full name, Kimberly Levaco, is an anagram for “cleverly
akimbo”, which is how his skewed mind works). It's not so
coincidentally her sixteenth birthday, the age at which most people
die from her disease.
That's already an exhausting amount of information to
digest, and things get curiouser and curiouser as we immerse
ourselves deeper and deeper into this, uh, rabbit hole. Under the
wondrous Direction of Allison Olivia Choat, this cast takes us along
for this increasingly zany yet hilariously lunatic ride. Central to
the mayhem is Kimberly herself, as believably as well as beautifully
embodied by Thomas, whose skeptical but innocent coming-of-aging is
amazingly portrayed by her every expression and gesture. She's evenly
matched by the appropriately manic performance of Winson, who nails
his character's Joisey accent as well as his roller coaster persona.
The same could be said for the neurotically self-centered Pattie
portrayed by Greene and the crazed and criminal Debra inhabited by
Dirik, not to mention the creepily engaging Jeff played by Cardona, a
youthful discovery who's more than capable of holding his own with
the other seasoned performers. Even as the play spirals more and more
away from anything remotely resembling the norm, they all keep this
careening vehicle on course. Lindsay-Abaire's knack for creating
off-the-ceiling characters has never been funnier, but he has some
serious thoughts to share as well. This is all ably abetted by the
amusingly trashy Set Design by John Paul Devlin, the wild Costume
Design by Susanne Miller, fine Lighting Design by Jeffrey E.
Salzberg, Music Composition by Dan Rodriguez, and, at the wonderfully
absurd denouement, the effective Projection Design by Matthew
Houstle. The cast and creative team are clearly on the same
fringe-tattered page.
This is about as black as humor gets, and the magicians
at Moonbox manage to pull it off just about as colorfully as one
could hope for. As Jeff might put it, as in the heading above, this
is a comedy, not a “funeral”. Which, also not coincidentally, is
an anagram for “real fun”.
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