BWW Reviews: Country Playhouse's KIMBERLY AKIMBO is Tender and Funny

David Lindsay-Abaire's quirky coming-of-age tragicomedy KIMBERLY AKIMBO is closing Country Playhouse's 2012-2013 Black Box Season. The 2000 play is an incredibly gripping and compelling tale about a young woman suffering from Progeria, a disease that causes people to age exponentially faster than they are supposed to. Kimberly is approaching her 16^th birthday, which is a joyous milestone for most teenagers. But 16 is the average life expectancy for those with Progeria. To top it all off, Kimberly's family is a struggling, lower-middle class family with their own set of dark secrets and problems.

Direction by Aimee Small ensures that audiences who saw KIMBERLY AKIMBO at Studio 101 when Mildred's Umbrella's Theater Company did it earlier this season will experience the show in a completely different way. Her take on the material goes for broke with the more overtly humorous aspects of the show, drawing out many a loud guffaw from the crowd at Thursday's preview performance. Under her direction, the cast deftly takes the audience on quite an emotional ride, making us laugh when Debra finds Kimberly in the library, breaking our hearts with the devastating cliffhanger that ends the first act, and creating a splendidly mirthful ambience during the family's Dungeons & Dragons game.

Lee Raymond's Kimberly is biting and sardonic from the beginning to the end. She is dryly comedic and full of the angst that we expect from a temperamental teenager. As Kimberly begins to explore her romantic feelings for Jeff, she is remarkably adorable. She ignites such a palpable electricity through the audience we all root for her to win the boy in spite everything else that is going wrong in her life.

Rolando Cantu, Jr. skillfully plays Jeff. He is pleasantly awkward because of his naivety and innocence, hilarious, and entirely endearing. His tender emotions and care for Kimberly wins the audience over and makes us like Rolando Cantu, Jr.'s Jeff all the more.

As Kimberly's father, Buddy, James Reed creates a man that is imbued with tangible sympathetic and empathetic energies. It is obvious how much he loves and cares for his daughter, but his struggle with alcoholism constantly interferes.

The portrayal of Pattie is one of the biggest differences between the Country Playhouse and Mildred's Umbrella productions. While some audiences may appreciate this approach to the character, I honestly did not. I found Amanda Baird's Pattie to be entirely too bubbly and effervescent. In my opinion, David Lindsay-Abaire writes Pattie to be imbued with an almost malice-malice that comes from her own fears and anxieties about her daughter dying before she does. So, in my opinion, Pattie becomes a hypochondriac that is unintentionally cruel. This is where subtly is key, as the audience must believe that Pattie loves her daughter and family but is coping with her situation as best as she can. Yet, Aimee Small and Amanda Baird have created a character is giddy, hyperactive, bouncy, and full of smiles. This approach uses comedy and abundant cheer as Pattie's coping mechanisms, making her barb-filled lines read more like pithy and punchy one-liners. Regardless of my personal feelings, Thursday night's audience went with this portrayal, rolled with laughter, and seemed to really get into this take on Pattie.

Kimberly's homeless aunt Debra, portrayed by GIna Williamson, is wonderfully brash and adeptly comical. GIna Williamson nails the New Jersey accent and creates a character that is wholly loveable, even if she is scummy and slightly sleazy.

Set Design by Keisha Lovewell is incredibly expansive and detailed for the small performance space. She uses some clever tricks, like the family's pantry pulls down to reveal Kimberly's bed. However, it may be too complicated in some ways. As the cast moves the flats on casters and repositions them for every scene, some urgency is lost in the lengthy transitions.

Light Design by Adam Richardson lights the performance space well and keeps the cast in very realistic lighting for the entirety of the performance. A few colors are added in, but there are delicately used.

Sound, coordinated by Rick Burford, is appealing and works well, especially in the final scene.

Country Playhouse is doing great and fun work with their production of David Lindsay-Abaire's KIMBERLY AKIMBO. The dark comedy has recently became one of my favorite contemporary plays. It is a challenging piece of work that encourages audiences to reexamine the power of familial relationships, especially how much they affect our development during adolescence.

KIMBERLY AKIMBO runs in Country Playhouse's Black Box through April 27, 2013. For more information and tickets, please visit http://www.countryplayhouse.org or call (713) 467 - 4497.

Rehearsal photos courtesy of Country Playhouse.

Lee Raymond (Kimberly), James Reed (Buddy) & GIna Williamson (Debra)

Lee Raymond (Kimberly), Rolando Cantu, Jr. (Jeff) & James Reed (Buddy)