We seem, bobbing in the slipstream of mega musicals like Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera, to be living in the era of the chamber musical. Small scale, single-set productions with high concepts and minimal staging dominate the musical theatre landscape now, from Hamilton to Hadestown. Kimberly Akimbo, composed by Jeanine Tesori with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, follows the general shape and emotional contours of Tesori’s previous chamber musical, an adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home. This time, Lindsay-Abaire adapts his own play about a sixteen-year-old girl who ages four-to-five times faster than everyone around her. It is intimate, charming, and emotionally resonant. If there is a sneaking suspicion that it lacks ambition, that it luxuriates in small mercies while a desperate world cries out for larger ones, it still manages to walk a precarious tonal tightrope between sentiment and cynicism. Kimberly might be akimbo, but the producers of her show are most definitely in control.

We are in New Jersey on the brink of the millennium – brinks are important here, characters constantly toppling on the edge of one – as Kimberly Levaco (Marina Prior) adjusts to a new school following her family’s abrupt move from a neighbouring county. Home life is strained, at best. Mum Pattie (Christie Whelan-Browne) is heavily pregnant with her arms in casts, and Dad Buddy (Nathan O’Keefe) is in the middle of another bout of alcoholism. They are not terrible people but their parenting skills need improving. Kimberly seems fairly content, although she has a tendency to skulk in corners away from the eyes of her schoolmates, her condition rendering her shy and self-conscious. At the local skating rink, she largely avoids people.

It takes the gumption of the rink’s pimply teen attendant Seth (Darcy Wain) to bring Kimberly out of her shell. He is pretty marginalised himself, a puzzle enthusiast who specialises in anagrams. He creates one from her name – Cleverly Akimbo – and she finds it so charming that it leads to the possibility of romance. Soon the quartet of teens who make up the show’s chorus (Jacob Rozario, Alana Iannace, Marty Alix and Allycia Angeles) accept Kimberley and Seth into their group, taking Kim’s illness in their stride – apart from the occasionally clunky comment, which she stoically ignores.

Into this tentative stasis comes Aunt Debra (Casey Donovan), a colourful fraudster harbouring elaborate plans to steal and cash cheques with the help of Kimberly’s new friends and a stolen post box. As Seth reamarks late in the proceedings, Debra ‘is actually a terrible person’, but she does bring much needed chaos to the piece and thus some winds of change. She is not popular in the Levaco home – she was the reason they fled their previous address – but she recognises Kimberly’s situation as dire and proposes a solution. It is the impetus Kimberly desperately needs.

For much of its running time, Kimberly Akimbo plays like a gentle farce or comedy of embarrassment, mining the utter humiliation of the teenage years with warmth and pinpoint accuracy. The teen quartet are all in unrequited love with each other, so there is no shortage of angst, which neatly mirrors the pining for life that drives our protagonist. Tesori’s songs, and Lindsay-Abaire’s accompanying lyrics, tend towards the plaintive and plucky, with the melody often following the vocal lines. They’re sweet, but don’t quite add up to a comprehensive or memorable score. If it weren’t for that central conceit – the looming threat of mortality that shades every moment of Kimberly’s day – the musical might feel dangerously slight.

Nathan O'Keefe as Dad Buddy and Marina Prior as Kimberly Levaco (photograph by Sam Roberts)

The trace of bitterness, not just from Kimberly’s hopeless condition but the folly and narcissism of her parents, provides the perfect release from all that sugar, intensifying and complicating the most innocent of transactions. One moment in which the teenagers express their hopes for the future and Kimberley watches in polite silence is quietly devastating. Each act of carelessness from Pattie and Buddy cuts deeper when we know how little time Kimberly has left to recover. And her stoicism, her ability to roll with the punches, becomes not just powerfully moving but almost miraculous. Like the eponymous hero of Matilda: The musical, Kimberly’s triumphs come from a kernel of great strength and wisdom.

The cast are uniformly excellent. Whelan-Browne and O’Keefe are spiky and garish as Kimberly’s parents, able to suggest wells of grief and regret under their comic grotesquerie. Donovan again proves indispensable as the dodgy aunt, and Wain is a delight as the impossibly nerdy love interest. The teen quartet are hilarious, daggy, and winning, and give the impression of having wandered onto the set of Mean Girls from the set of Theatre Camp. But for all that Kimberly Akimbo feels like an ensemble work, it really belongs to Prior; she carries most of the emotional weight and all of the dramatic stakes. Rather than overemphasise Kimberly’s age, she underplays it and the result is something nuanced and beautifully calibrated. She is the musical’s beating heart.

Director Mitchell Butel handles the work’s tricky tonal demands with suppleness and surety, on a bright, geometric set (designed with flair by Jonathon Oxlade) and cleverly lit by Matt Scott. Ailsa Paterson’s costumes are heaps of fun, too. It is hard to imagine a more persuasive production or a better cast to bring this work to fruition.

Kimberly Akimbo isn’t quite as good as Tesori’s Fun Home – its emotional resonances are less complex and its conclusions less open-ended – but it is not far off. The image of a young girl in the body of a much older woman holds a strange power, perhaps because we never really leave our teenage selves behind as we age. Kimberly’s determination to seize life by both hands, to experience all she can before it is too late, is all of ours; she is both metaphor and supreme example. If that is too simplistic, it still packs a forceful emotional wallop.

Kimberly Akimbo (Melbourne Theatre Company) continues at the Arts Centre until 30 August 2025. Performance attended: July 30.