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Kimberly Akimbo

 Kimberly Levaco is dying -- just as everyone else is dying -- and she'd very much like a "great adventure." She'd like to travel. She'd also like to have "a normal family."


The stakes are high for Kimberly because she might not see her seventeenth birthday; she has a rare disease that causes her to look sixty even as she makes her way through high-school biology. 

To raise money for a barnstorming cross-country trip, Kimberly chooses to "wash checks." She has a law-breaking aunt who steals a mailbox, and then she just needs a kind of flytrap device to suck sealed checks up and out of the box. This actually works -- and Kimberly has a breezy time dressing as a friendly grandmother and chatting with an innocent teller at her local bank. 

But if money is easy, family is hard. Despite being wise, Kimberly can also be foolish; she thinks she can force her narcissistic parents to behave themselves. When Mom and Dad forget to find gifts for Kimberly's birthday, Kimberly makes a request: We'll call it even if you, Dad, can stop drinking, and you, Mom, can get your head out of your butt. Imagine how long this "pax Levaca" turns out to last.

Despite her inevitable disappointment, Kimberly does find a way to have her adventure (and the solution is surprising). She invents a new family; it's "normal," in the sense that both members are alert, present, listening. She and her friend drive off to Disney World; the last time we see her, she is beaming, in Mickey ears. Dying, but not dead yet.

The writer, David Lindsay-Abaire, loves rudeness and abrasive behavior. He won a Pulitzer for "Rabbit Hole," which has the famous image of Nicole Kidman in a group of bereaved parents. (Kidman grows irritated when one mother claims that God "just really wanted" another angel. "Is that true?" Kidman asks. She rolls her eyes. "Why didn't He make one? Why didn't He just fucking *make* another angel?") In "Kimberly Akimbo," the heroine grows tired of politely changing the subject; she "acts out" by furiously "teaching" a biology mini-course on her own horrifying disease. ("What about you all?" she asks her "healthy" classmates. "You're idiots. You're worried about secret crushes. You're wasting time. That's *your* disease.") In one of many stunning moments from the new musical, a woman demands to have a healthy baby; she lies to her husband (who has problematic sperm), and she seduces the next-door neighbor. Lindsay-Abaire is at his best when he is dreaming up outrageous, unnerving behavior; he understands that we're all animals in silly clothing.

It was such a gift to get to "see myself" in Kimberly Levaco -- the foolishness, hopefulness, creativity, impatience, messiness, and occasional courage.

I understand that this is a deadly season for new musicals, but I thought "Kimberly Akimbo" was elegant and ballsy -- and I hope it will stick around.

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