Daily News from New York, New York • 36

5tiV i Delightful wrinkle on teen tale KIMBERLY AKIMBO By David Undsay-Abalre. With Marylouise Burke, John Gallagher Ana Gasteyer, Jodie Markell, Jake Weber. Directed by David Petrarca. At Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 W. 55th St.

Tickets: $60. (212) 581-1212. -fA-. -1- A teen girl suffering from a rare disease that causes premature aging hardly seems the stuff of comedy. Yet in David Lindsay-Abaire's "Kimberly Akimbo," the subject is the unlikely springboard for a wacky, touching and totally charming dark comedy that gives a whole new meaning to "coming-of-age story." Of course, Lindsay-Abaire is the same playwright who used I if I 1 amnesia and loss of SDeech 0 1 and language comprehen- 1 LAUGHING MATTERS: Jeff (John Gallagher Aunt Debra (Ana Gasteyer, and Kimberly (Marylouise Burke) in "Kimberly Akimbo," an unlikely comedy about a 16-year-old with a deadly disease and a bizarre family.

devices four years ago in the surreal farce "Fuddy Meers," which also ran at Manhattan Theatre Club. to cheap sentiment. It's a consistently witty work that generates laughs from its off-kilter exploration of family dynamics. Wonderfully portrayed by 62-year-old Marylouise Burke (who co-starred in "Fuddy 16-year-old Kimberly Levaco is a typical New Jersey high-schooler. Except she looks like, and essentially is, a lady of 75.

She's also the only emotionally mature member of her dysfunctional family. Besides facing the grim reality that her life expectancy is 16 years, Kimberly has to deal with her alcoholic, lovable loser of a father (Jake Weber of HBO's "The Mind of the Married and a foulmouthed, hypochondriacal, pregnant mother (Jodie Markell) who devotes all her attention to the unborn baby. There's also her hyper aunt, Debra (a very funny Ana Gasteyer, formerly of "Saturday Night an incorrigible ex-con who concocts a check-forging scam that relies on Kimberly's aged appearance. It's just one of several subplots deftly threaded together, including Kimberly's attraction to a sweet, nerdy classmate, Jeff (John Gallagher The play is packed with quirky touches that initially seem trivial, but all are put to good comic effect. The title itself is derived from the anagrams Jeff is so adept at scramble the letters in "Kimberly Levaco," he says, and it's "Cleverly Akimbo." So is this delightfully skewed play.

E-mail: rdominguez edit. nydaifynews.com With "Kimberly," in which the title character has progeria, which causes her body to age at an accelerated rate, Lindsay-Abaire uses the affliction to explore mortality and denial. While the story's simple, if cli-ched, message is "Enjoy life while you can," it never panders OLD VIC GETS NEW LEADER: KEVIN SPACEY i fi if Wu I TOP 1 I ii ill Mill Mniii ittto lMltMfffiW By PATRICIA O'HAIRE NEWS STAFF WRITER revin bpacey, the qumtessentially DAILY 10 DAILY American actor and a two-time Oscar winner for "The Usual Suspects" 1(1995) and "American Beauty" Not doing fine, to close '0: the revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic at the Gershwin Theater, will drop its curtain for the last en CM (0 (1999), is expected to be named artistic director of London's famous Old Vic Theater today. Spacey, 43, will be the first American to head the historic 185-year-old theater, once home to Laurence Olivier's National Theater Company. Elton John, chairman of the Trust, which purchased the theater in 1998 when, it looked as if it would be forced to close, will make the appointment.

Spacey starred at the Old Vic in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" in 1998 before bringing it to Broadway in 2000. He has been a member of the board and consultant for the Old Vic Theater Trust since 2000. Spacey and John will sing several of John's songs at an Old Vic fundraiser this evening; they will be joined by a hit in London with Hugh Jackman as Curly and Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey. But when Gabrielle made her debut here, the show got lukewarm reviews from critics. It has returned about 60 of its $6.5 million investment, sources estimate.

It grossed $296,253 last week, filling less than half of the Gershwin. The original production opened in 1943 and ran for 2,212 performances. Patricia O'Halre LONDON CALLING: Kevin Spacey will be artistic director of the Old Vic Theater. Sinead O'Connor, Lulu, Canadian jazz star Diana Krall, Elvis Costello and others. According to Spacey's spokeswoman, Staci Wolfe, there are no plans for him to move to England.

"He's back and forth to London all the time as it is," she said. time after the matinee of Feb. 23. The musical, with Patty Duke as Aunt Eller, will close on the one-year anniversary of its first preview; it will have played 25 previews and 388 performances. The Royal National Theatre production, produced by Cameron Mackintosh and directed by Trevor Nunn, was.