Thursday, June 09, 2005
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And you thought your family had problems?
New Stage Collective presents 'Kimberly Akimbo'
By
Allyson Jacob
Things are about to get very absurd at New Stage Collective (NSC). The local theatre company kicks off their third season with a production of David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Kimberly Akimbo” Thursday, June 23 at the Contemporary Arts Center. Cincinnati audiences only have one weekend to catch the regional premiere.
“Kimberly Akimbo” details the lives of the off-kilter Levaco family — dad Buddy is an alcoholic who works at a gas station, mom Pattie is a very pregnant hypochondriac, aunt Debra is a check-washing criminal with a head for business and daughter Kimberly is 16 and is in the throes of first love, despite having a form of progeria, a disease that ages her body four and a half times as fast as the rest of her.
Lindsay-Abaire has written a family of misfits, similar to the family who inhabits “Fuddy Meers,” produced in Cincinnati in 2000-01 by the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. Alternatively funny and touching, with a good dose of absurdity thrown in, Lindsay-Abaire doesn’t let his characters’ quirks and diseases stand in the way of a good story that’s all about connecting in a world of increasing disconnection.
“‘Kimberly Akimbo’ is a rarity,” explains Alan Patrick Kenny, director of the play and artistic director of NSC. “It’s a play filled with crazy and eccentric characters, often pushed to the limits of believability, that each seem to belong to their own separate universe. However, the playwright has taken these absurd concoctions and done the impossible—treat them with respect and as real human beings. What you get is some incredibly weird and unexpected scenes… and a story that is more funny and moving than any other play of its style.”
In addition to being a regional premiere, NSC’s production of “Kimberly” is the first in the country to have been granted the rights to use the incidental music composed for the original Off-Broadway show, written by Broadway composer Jason Robert Brown. Brown’s music accurately reflects the quirky and off-kilter scenes that comprise the two act comedy, and Kenny is excited to have access to it.
“NSC has a history of courtship with Brown’s work,” says Kenny. “We presented the regional premiere of his musical ‘The Last Five Years,’ which is currently running at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park during our 2003 inaugural season.”
Kenny and his production team have assembled a dynamic cast to flesh out the zany Levaco family. Sue Breving, a Cincinnati theatre veteran who was last seen with Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival in “Hamlet” and in “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” plays Kimberly, and Anthony Darnell, a Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music drama major, plays Jeff, Kimberly’s unexpected and socially challenged teenage love interest.
Kimberly’s parents are played by Allison Collins-Elfline, who was nominated for a Cincinnati Entertainment Award for her turn in NSC’s “Side Show,” and Keith Richards, lately of Showboat Majestic’s “Star-Spangled Girl.” Melissa Arleth, fresh from a turn with Madcap Puppet Theatre, tackles the role of Aunt Debra.
This season marks a new collaboration between NSC and the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC). As part of the CAC’s Performance Affiliate Program, the center rents space to homeless theatre companies at an affordable cost. “New Stage Collective has finally arrived in downtown Cincinnati,” states Kenny, “and we couldn’t be more honored to make our home for our entire season at the stunning new Contemporary Arts Center.”
Ultimately, Kenny hopes that audiences will laugh a lot and learn at least a little. “The message of ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ is that our quirks and faults and physical and social maladies do not define us as people,” he explains. “They are the only things that most people see. .The play challenges us to see beyond our surface attributes. In our current society of judgment, suspicion, and hatred of all that is different than us, ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ asks us to have the courage to connect—and maybe play a game of ‘Trouble’ or ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ with each other while we’re at it.”
Tickets for “Kimberly Akimbo” are $11 for adults and $8 for students, and are available by calling the CAC Performance Affiliate Hotline at (513) 345-8405.
Allyson Jacob is a freelance writer and playwright living just outside of Cincinnati.
