Mirvish's Kimberly Akimbo is worth seeing, despite a few flaws

To be clear: there was no pre-show illness announcement before the show began, and when I reached out to Mirvish Productions, which is co-producing the production (as part of its Off-Mirvish season) with Montreal’s Segal Centre for Performing Arts, a rep told me Pitre was in good health and that she was singing the role the way it was written.

Pitre, of course, is the multiple Dora Award-winning vocal and acting powerhouse who has blown the roofs off Toronto theatres in “Les Misérables,” “Mamma Mia!” and “Piaf/Dietrich,” among other shows. As recently as late August, she was in fine form as Marya in “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.”

But Marya is a supporting part and Kimberly Levaco, the teenage protagonist of Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire’s best musical Tony Award winner, is the lead.

If you’re wondering why Pitre is playing a teen in the first place, that’s part of the show’s unique premise.

Kimberly was born with a rare genetic disorder that has caused her to age about four or five times faster than normal. Only 15 years old when the play starts, she appears to be in her 60s. As we learn in the show, most people with the disease don’t live past 16, a milestone Kimberly reaches before the night is done.

Her working class New Jersey family is supportive, but they are an unusual bunch. Father Buddy (Cyrus Lane) is an alcoholic. Mother Patti (Tess Benger) is heavily pregnant and has casts on both elbows from carpal tunnel syndrome, which she got (so she claims) while working at her factory job. And Patti’s sister Debra (Kristen Peace) is a petty thief who’s on parole for a crime she committed in the Levacos’ previous Jersey neighbourhood.

Although she’s the new kid at school, Kimberly has made friends with several students, most of whom don’t get invited to house parties so end up skating at the local indoor rink. She forms a special bond with Seth (Thomas Winiker), a self-professed nerd who also works at the skating rink.

Although the Broadway production won a raft of Tony Awards — including best musical — in 2023, this is a tricky show to get right tonally. One false move with the family hijinks and the material can seem condescending toward its working class characters. A ridiculous scheme dreamt up by Debra involves mail and cheque fraud; a weak production could make you dislike all the adults.

It’s to director Robert McQueen’s credit that we end up enjoying the ride, although there are a few bumps along the way. Gillian Gallow’s set has to change from the arena-like expanse of a public rink to a modest home and a school library, and the scene transitions occasionally feel awkward.

Relative newcomers Jake Cohen, Kyle Jonathon, Taylor Lovelace and Luca McPhee bring fine voices and lots of energy to their roles as high schoolers negotiating adolescence, each one painfully in love with the wrong people.

In one of the show’s many moving scenes, they talk about how they can’t wait to get out of their teen years and get on with their real lives — something, of course, Kimberly won’t get to do.

Winiker is a real find as the geeky, charming Seth, obsessed with anagrams, “Lord of the Rings” and (possibly) Kimberly.

Pearce, so memorable as Bonnie, the sympathetic SPCA worker in “Come From Away,” brings an earthiness to Debra that is refreshing, if unsubtle. Lane and Benger each have their moments, singing Tesori’s often quirky melodies with skill and earning audience sympathy by the second act.

And then there’s Pitre. She’s always possessed a husky, gritty voice that grounds her characters and makes them scrappy and relatable. As Kimberly, however, she needs to convince us that inside this older woman is the heart and soul of a 16-year-old.

It takes a special kind of actor to pull this off, and given the uneven performance she delivered on Sunday, especially in her strained high notes, I was always aware of the 69-year-old onstage. If theatre is all about suspending disbelief, it was hard to do that in Pitre’s case.

That said, the musical’s main theme concerns seizing the day and living life to its fullest, no matter how much time you have left. There are some gorgeous things packed into this musical, including a fine eight-piece band under music director Chris Barillaro.

Watching this show, despite its flaws, is time well spent.