Theatre in Review: Weather Girl (St. Ann's Warehouse)

	Julia McDermott. Photo: Emilio Madrid

Brian Watkins hasn't solved the climate crisis, but in the solo show Weather Girl, he has found theatrically potent way of writing about it, which is no small thing. His vessel in this endeavor is Stacey Gross, one of these peppy blonde Barbies who deliver weather forecasts on local TV news stations. Based in Fresno, Stacey has the right look and alarmingly correct attitude -- on location, she grins for the camera even as a house burns down behind her -- but she is on a spectacular downward slide. Where to begin? An alcoholic -- she appears on camera, toting a travel mug filled with prosecco or vodka -- she prefers not to think about her ninety-thousand-dollar credit card debt. She is haunted by her mother, a homeless drug addict with a passion for karaoke and Thoroughly Modern Millie, not to mention a possible knack for witchcraft. There's the dinner date Stacey puts in the hospital after a perilous, drunken car ride. And the threatened transfer to Phoenix that sends her into a tailspin, climaxing in the wildest on-air rant since Peter Finch went ballistic in Network.

Paralleling Stacey's misadventures is a wildfire of the sort that California has seen too often in recent years. Despite the obvious danger, everyone seems determined to ignore the walls of flame cutting a relentless path and coming ever nearer. A family dies rather than evacuate because they believe the event is a government hoax. Stacey's bosses, who only want happy news, force her to cheerily announce, "Okayyyy good morning Central Valley, it's a mild...one-oh-four out there in downtown Fresno." Her viewers may be burnt to a crisp but, if she has anything to say about it, they'll go cheerfully.

As even Stacey must recognize, the city she loves is an overbuilt mess: "We get into town passing streets like Orange Grove and Orchard Park but there's no groves or orchards here anymore. It's mostly homes and strip malls and car washes and fast food joints like Wendy's and Rally's and Arby's and Carl's Jr and Burger King and McDonalds and In-N-Out and Taco Bell and Del Taco and Subway and Chick-fil-A and Popeye's and KFC... and El Pollo Loco: 'Fast Mexican. Crazy Good'." This paved paradise is the perfect staging ground for apocalypse, with plenty of cheap eats available for one's last meal.

This vital issue has eluded many theatre playwrights, largely because it is a slow-moving disaster that resists being put onstage. In my experience, only Madeleine George has been able to tackle it, in Hurricane Diane, a riotous boulevard-style comedy that packs a powerful warning about the future. In Weather Girl, Watkins fearlessly weds Stacey's farcical psychological meltdown to environmental catastrophe; the result is both shockingly hilarious and an urgent warning to pause before we all jump, lemming-like, off an existential cliff.

Watkins, author of the eerily amusing pandemic-era comedy Epiphany, writes with needle-like precision about our unthinking pursuit of pleasure and ease at the expense of the planet. Stacey's would-be boyfriend -- unable to remember his name, she calls him Mark, pretending it's an affectionate in-joke -- is a "tech bro," living in a house with "devices perfectly synced and clean floors and a total absence of printed materials." To Stacey, "It's sociopathically spotless...everything feels like that moment when you peel the plastic off a new Apple product." Naturally, he is masterminding a plan to build 600 smart homes in a city with water resources already stretched to the limit. The playwright also has a faultless ear for the run-on verbal nonsense that constitutes Stacey's weather reports. ("You'll see it's a little smoggy but, hey, at least you can take that sunshine with you into the weekend. It's gonna be a nice one, ninety-eight across the inland empire, so I dunno, maybe it's a kinda one of those...what'd you call it blue skies and mai-tais kinda weekends...") A club called Malibu Nights is "filled with unattractive men and girls in tube skirts," calling up a seedy pickup universe in nine words.

Brilliantly handling all this, under Tyne Rafaeli's pacey, pointed direction is Julia McDermott, her California-girl looks and freeze-dried smile belying her rampaging unease and unexpected bursts of rage. She keeps up a relentless pace throughout without going too far or losing steam. She's really in her element when, offered a promotion in front of the entire staff, her hostile responses are repeatedly taken for lighthearted humor. And she makes the most of the episode with her mother, who may or may not be able to create water out of nothing, before ending in a brutal rejection. Mortifyingly trapped into giving a karaoke performance, she also gamely delivers the worst version ever of "The Pina Colada Song."

Underlying the nature of Stacey's career, Isabella Byrd's set design looks like a TV studio green-screen setup, with Byrd's inventive lighting constantly reshaping the space. The inferno look for Stacey's drive through a burning downtown, featuring dark-amberish side lighting and smoke effects, is especially hellish. I don't understand why Rachel Dainer-Best has dressed McDermott in a clashing purple skirt and red top; maybe it has something to do with how Stacey is supposed to look on screen. Kieran Lucas' sound design, especially the violent woosh heard during transitions, is first-rate. (Hang on for the use of The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice," for an ironic coda post curtain-call.)

Not everything in Weather Girl tracks perfectly. Even in a piece that deals in wild comic exaggeration, the script sometimes pushes plausibility to the limits. Stacey's final jeremiad, delivered to the camera, would be cut off after about ten seconds and replaced by commercials. And, really, after this brazen display of unprofessional behavior, would the Phoenix job offer still be on the table? Nevertheless, Watkins and his fellow artists get massive credit for finding a funny, accessible, and stageworthy way of facing humankind's deepest, most vexing problem. Listen to Stacey; she knows what she's talking about. --David Barbour