Kimberly Akimbo
May. 3rd, 2004 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidYesterday I went to the Boston Theatre Works production of Kimberly Akimbo (David Linsday-Abaire). It's a very funny show about a girl who ages at 4.5 times the usual rate, right around the time of her 16th birthday (16 is the average life expectancy of people with this disease).
It's a very funny show, balancing all the bizarre dysfunction in her family, her disease, and her realistic approach towards life, taking what it offers when she can.
The set helped this along. It was striped, floor and wall behind, in different colors. The back wall had a number of rectangles that flipped around to show different things (a fridge door, a clock, bookcases, a phone, etc) that set the different spaces. And the furniture worked in similar sorts of ways, with chairs that moved together to become other things, and a table with a top that flipped, things like that. The actors did most of the set changes themselves, staying in character while they did, which was particularly impressive for the 9-months-pregnant mom on crutches with her hands wrapped up from carpal tunnel surgery.
Also fun were the game references, with much D&D, and Trouble (a game where you get to push a plastic dome over a die rather than roll it yourself; I remember playing this when I was small). And really, the dialogue was excellent; the audience cracked up a number of times.
The last part of their season is still to come: a festival of new plays, May 20–23.
It's a very funny show, balancing all the bizarre dysfunction in her family, her disease, and her realistic approach towards life, taking what it offers when she can.
The set helped this along. It was striped, floor and wall behind, in different colors. The back wall had a number of rectangles that flipped around to show different things (a fridge door, a clock, bookcases, a phone, etc) that set the different spaces. And the furniture worked in similar sorts of ways, with chairs that moved together to become other things, and a table with a top that flipped, things like that. The actors did most of the set changes themselves, staying in character while they did, which was particularly impressive for the 9-months-pregnant mom on crutches with her hands wrapped up from carpal tunnel surgery.
Also fun were the game references, with much D&D, and Trouble (a game where you get to push a plastic dome over a die rather than roll it yourself; I remember playing this when I was small). And really, the dialogue was excellent; the audience cracked up a number of times.
The last part of their season is still to come: a festival of new plays, May 20–23.