Unexpectedly, ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ Is as Exhilarating as It Is Heartbreaking

While the plight of a 16-year-old suffering from a disorder that causes her to physically age much too quickly would hardly seem like fodder for musical comedy, joy ultimately wins the day in David Lindsay-Abaire’s adaptation of his play.

Joan Marcus
Victoria Clark and Justin Cooley in ‘Kimberly Akimbo,’ Joan Marcus

One would be sorely pressed to find a more unconventional musical theater ingénue than the title character in “Kimberly Akimbo.” In some ways, this heroine is a typical teenager, albeit of the precocious, nerdy variety who wears jump dresses over striped shirts, adorns her bedroom with string lights and posters, and crushes on a sweet, similarly nerdy guy in her high school class.

Kimberly also suffers from a rare genetic disorder, one that causes her to physically age at between four and five times the rate she should, so that on the brink of turning 16 years old — the average lifespan for a person with her condition — she has the body of a woman roughly in her 70s. As she sings to her peers in a moment of piqued despair, “Getting older is my affliction/Getting older is your cure.”

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