TOM TITUS -- THEATER REVIEW

Over the 36 years and 362 productions South Coast Repertory has

mounted in Costa Mesa and in Newport Beach, one might think that there

isn’t a subject under the sun the company hasn’t approached. Yet you’d

have to go back 31 years to “Joe Egg” to find something even remotely

akin to “Kimberly Akimbo.”

David Lindsay-Abaire’s raucous comedy, being presented in its world

premiere at SCR, centers on a 17-year-old girl afflicted with progeria --

an advanced aging process that fast-forwards a person at that

chronological age into the equivalent of a septuagenarian.

While young Kimberly’s affliction is the focal point of the play, its

script doesn’t dwell overmuch on her prognosis for early mortality. For

compared to her wacky, working-class New Jersey family, she comes off as

the most normal and well-adjusted of the lot.

There are elements of playwrights John Guare and Christopher Durang,

not to mention Hollywood’s Quentin Tarantino and the Farrelly brothers,

in this story where outlandish, boorish behavior is the norm among these

denizens of Teaneck, N.J. If ever a state could sue for defamation, New

Jersey has a real case here.

Director David Petrarca coalesces Lindsay-Abaire’s various

off-the-wall elements of farcical comedy into a rousing, ribald sendup of

the working-class environment in which Kimberly reflects the only real

aura of optimistic normalcy. She certainly can’t relate to her

dysfunctional parents or a larcenous aunt; her only real salvation rests

with a nerdy high school boy with a penchant for anagrams.

Marylouise Burke beautifully interprets the afflicted but adjusted

Kimberly, physically appearing as an old woman but mentally and

emotionally locked in her teenage years. Her sunny disposition clouds

over only when one of her parents does something exceptionally stupid --

which occurs at frequent intervals.

Her mother is a cymbal clash of trailer park cliches, eight months

pregnant, her hands bandaged from carpal tunnel surgery and her foul

mouth running constantly. Ann Dowd delves into this unattractive,

outrageous character with a fervent passion, hilariously turning the air

blue and bumbling her parenting skills with a defiant shrug.

Steven Flynn is no role model either as her father, a gas station

attendant who drinks too much and embarrasses Kimberly in front of her

school buddy. Flynn projects a father who’d like to do a better job with

his special child, if only he knew just how to go about it.

The erstwhile boyfriend is a Mensa candidate and word nut

(anagramming, for instance, “mother in law” to “woman Hitler”). John

Gallagher Jr. is quite adept in this role, probably the most normally

conceived character in the play.

Completing the cast as the outlaw aunt, Joanna P. Adler reaps

continuous laughter as a felon who lugs a mailbox home so she can operate

a scam to collect money from the checks inside. Adler’s brash, avaricious

attitude stirs the silly subplot, which eventually leads to the play’s

satisfactory resolution.

The multiple settings by Robert Brill, which weave in and out of the

center staging area, fit in perfectly with the play’s bouncy tempo. A

back wall becomes a cupboard or refrigerator, and snow falls outside as

characters drive the semblance of a car around the set.

“Kimberly Akimbo” may resemble a series of “Saturday Night Live”

sketches, with characters who’d be right at home in a Tarantino or

Farrelly movie, but it contains elements of touching humanity at its

center, which deftly counterbalance all the cheap laughs. It’s a spicy

mixture --- but it better not play in New Jersey.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Thursdays and Saturdays.

FYI

* WHAT: “Kimberly Akimbo”

* WHERE: South Coast Repertory Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa

Mesa

* WHEN: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday and

2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday until May 13

* TICKETS: $28-$49

* PHONE: (714) 708-5555