US writer Brian Watkins is presumably currently somewhat bummed out that his Amazon Prime sci-fi series ‘Outer Range’ recently got cancelled after two seasons. But he can at least take some consolation in the runaway Fringe success of his haunting eco monologue ‘Weather Girl’.
The hottest ticket at Summmerhall this year, Watkins’s play is set in a wildfire-ravaged central California. It follows Stacey (Julia McDermott), an outwardly chipper weather presenter on a local news network whose gift for upbeat banter with her colleagues, making the endless hot days sound great to her viewers, and generally being hot and blonde all serve to make her extremely good at her job.
But underneath it all she is somebody completely different. Not just a stereotypical hot mess, but filled with a visceral loathing of everything she nominally stands for. She chugs from a sippy cup of Prosecco to get through her days, at best feels nothing for her job and colleagues, and feels a deep rooted unease at the heat that overwhelms her from the moment she gets up at 4am each morning. She goes on a date with some techbro whose name she doesn’t know, aggressively calling him ‘Mark’, crashing his fancy car and leaving him at the scene.
As the wildfires grow more intense, her employer insists Stacey not tell the viewers to evacuate lest they be upset. Stacey comes close to breaking point; but she also comes closer to her mother, an enigmatic homeless woman who she has had little to do with in the past but now feel drawn to after discovering they might share a strange gift.
Unsettling rather than preachy, ‘Weather Girl’ is a thrillingly crafted eco drama with magical realist undertones that deftly moves between darkly comic and nightmarishly earnest. Genuine Californian McDermott is superb in the role of Stacey, whose real curse is her inability to just convince herself that everything will simply turn out fine. In Tyne Rafaeli’s slickly-directed production, the (uncredited) lighting design is particularly on point, evocatively shifting the vibe from TV studio to nightclub to burning hellscape.
The Fringe run for ‘Weather Girl’ is already entirely sold out, even with extra shows added. But see if you can snag a return and if not I forecast that we’ll be seeing it again soon.