Most maids in opera are cute and perky, and can easily outsmart their employers. Tony Kushner’s maid Caroline is angry, seriously angry.

Opera? Tony Kushner? Yes, the wunderkind of modern theater now offers the partly autobiographical and nearly dialogue-free musical Caroline, or Change at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Set in late 1963, a year of epiphany for those of my generation, it depicts the moment when the bright promise of Camelot came to an abrupt end with an assassin’s bullet, and the beginnings of the civil rights revolution that followed soon after.

Caroline, or Change revolves around two characters: Caroline Thibodeaux (Tonya Pinkins, reprising her Broadway role), a black maid in the Lake Charles, Louisiana home of the Gellmans, and Noah (Benjamin Platt), the 9-year-old son of this well-to-do Jewish family.

Caroline is the victim of (and still mourns) a broken marriage to a violent man who left her to raise three children on $30 per week. Caroline is tired and angry and her face shows it. So does her demeanor with Noah, who nonetheless sticks to her like glue.

Noah, too, is in mourning: he’s lost his mother to cancer, and now finds he must compete for his father’s attention both with trying-too-hard stepmother Rose (Veanne Cox) and with music – his father shows an increasing penchant for withdrawing from family life to play his clarinet.

So: the woman of poverty and the child of privilege, sharing cigarettes and the great sadness that defines both of their lives. These two wounded birds carry the slight dramatic thrust of the play.

Caroline’s domain is the downstairs laundry room; her constant companions are The Washing Machine (a very frontloaded Capathia Jenkins), The Dryer (Chuck Cooper), and The Radio (Tracy Nicole Chapman, Marva Hicks, Kenna Ramsey), looking and sounding very like The Supremes.

Caroline’s world is small (by social design) and she knows it. That fact is only emphasized by a well-meaning gesture from Rose: Noah is in the habit of leaving change in his pants pockets. Rose tells Caroline she can keep any money she finds there, unaware of the implicit insult. Caroline’s response: “I don’t want to take pennies from a baby.”

Caroline, or Change makes up for its slight plot with a searing portrait of an era on the brink of change. Much of the drama is in Jeanine Tesori’s music – a grab bag of Motown, klezmer, blues, gospel, all sounding right out of the time period and absolutely right for Kushner’s lyrics. The deep-throated lament sung by The Bus (Chuck Cooper) announcing JFK’s assassination is particularly affecting.

Director George C. Wolfe is lucky to have most of the Broadway cast here, and there isn’t a weak spot anywhere. Pinkins is spectacular as Caroline, and her bluesy plea to God (“From the evil I done set me free. Don’t let my sorrow make evil of me”) is a showstopper.

The play should, in fact, end there, but eternal optimist Kushner adds an epilogue indicating that things are changing in society and Caroline’s daughter Emmie (Anika Noni Rose) is its embodiment. Emmie announces that she wants a car and a house, and also admits that she took part in the destruction of a statue of a Confederate soldier downtown. It’s nice but unnecessary and dilutes the power the show could have.

But Rose’s interpretation of Emmie is amazing, especially that rich voice. She could be the next Ella Fitzgerald.

Caroline, or Change is another link between musical theater and opera, and a welcome one. It’s been a long time since Bernstein’s Candide.

I have only one quibble with this show: the Ahmanson is too big for everyone to hear the lyrics easily. From the front row of the balcony (my preference for opera), it was difficult to catch all the words. Supertitles would help, as would either a better description of the play in the program or a printed libretto.

Caroline, or Change plays through Dec. 26 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Shows Tues.-Sat. at 8:00 p.m.; Sun. at 7:30 p.m.; matinees Sat. and Sun. at 2:00 p.m. Call (213) 628-2772 or visit www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to their website.

Plays come and plays go. Sometimes a show is so popular it comes back a second time. Sixth@Penn Theatre hosted two productions this year that did just that – Rosina Reynolds’ terrific Shirley Valentine and now Kimberly Akimbo, currently in a limited run at San Diego Repertory Theatre.

Kimberly (Linda Castro) is about to turn “sweet 16.” Sounds normal – except that Kim has progeria, a disease that ages its victims prematurely (at a rate of 4.5 times faster than normal), and the average life expectancy of a progeria patient is 16. So Kim the high school student looks in her late 60s.

Doesn’t sound like the stuff of comedy, does it? But playwright David Lindsey-Abaire has surrounded Kim with a seriously dysfunctional and wisecracking family: her unreliable and nearly always drunk dad Buddy (Matt Scott) and her very pregnant mother Pattie (Jo Anne Glover). They live in Bogota, N.J., where they have just moved for unexplained reasons. Dad is sweet but wimpy and forgetful; mom is loud, bossy and “hypochondriacal”. They seem to spend much of their time zinging each other verbally and avoiding discussion of any serious issues.

Kim’s school chum Jeff (Jason Connors), who in his fumbling 16-year-old way wants to be something more, wants to interview her for his biology paper on progeria. Kim is willing, though not exactly thrilled at that prospect, but welcomes the relatively normal social interaction.

Into the mix comes Kim’s aunt, a whirlwind named Debra (Liv Kellgren), an occasional jailbird and self-proclaimed dyke, always on the lookout for a good scam.

Neil Simonesque one-liners come fast and furious (Debra, of the kitchen wallpaper: “Looks like you live in a giant thermos”), and so do sitcom-like situations (Pattie making a tape for the unborn child, with helpful observations like “People are hateful cocksuckers”).

There is the underlying sadness of Kim’s condition, but it’s subsumed in the goofy situations and rapid-fire jokes. The message, presumably, is carpe diem, but I wish the playwright had trusted his audience a bit more with the serious issues here.

Castro anchors the terrific original cast. Her sardonic, sad-but-funny delivery is just right for the no-nonsense Kim, surrounded by lunatics of one sort or another. Glover’s Pattie is sharp of tongue and overwrought as only a woman about to deliver can be. Connors (winner of a Young Playwrights award last year) shows himself to be a terrific actor as well, giving Jeff just the right amount of shy geekiness. Kellgren makes the most of the showcase role. Scott does what he can with the least defined character of Buddy.

This Kimberly marks the debut of the area’s newest theater company, Moxie Theatre, which plans to open a storefront theater in Encinitas in 2005. The founders are Delicia Turner Sonnenberg (who directs this show), Jennifer Kraus, Jo Anne Glover and Liv Kellgren. You go, girls! You’re off to a great start.

Kimberly Akimbo plays through Dec. 24 at San Diego Repertory Theatre in Horton Plaza. Shows Wed.-Sat. at 8:00 p.m. and Sun. at 2:00 p.m. For tickets call Moxie at (760) 634-3965 or San Diego Repertory Theatre box office at (619) 544-1000.