Beneath this Weather Girl's sunshiny veneer lurks something fantastically primal, something that may be the key to saving us all. "Weather Girl" is at GableStage through Sunday, Oct. 18. (Photo by Magnus Stark, courtesy of GableStage)
Need water ASAP?
Ask the attractive young lady in Brian Watkins’ play “Weather Girl” to conjure it on demand.
The award-winning, funny, yet cautionary and sometimes absurdist play, which fortunately never becomes alarmist, is running through Sunday, Oct. 18 in an energetic and believable production by GableStage in the Wolfson Family Theatre.
The one-performer play, directed with attention to detail by Nicole Stodard, stars Ella Olesen in a multi-faceted and convincing performance as the titular weather forecaster.
Stacey Gross is an upbeat television weather presenter in present-day Fresno, Calif. She tries to deliver sunny forecasts while the world around her descends into chaos and environmental catastrophe. As the play progresses, Gross learns that she’s inherited an ability that could go a long way toward saving the planet. Is she a superhero? Watkins could’ve dubbed her “Water Girl,” someone who swoops in and saves the planet, but he doesn’t make it that simple. Gross is a flawed, complex character who happens to have inherited a superhuman ability.
Ella Olesen playing TV weather presenter Stacey Gross in a scene of “Weather Girl” (Photo by Magnus Stark, courtesy of GableStage)
Stodard deftly builds dramatic momentum and paces the production at a proper speed, neither too fast nor too slow. This allows us to follow the story and maintain interest throughout the approximately 75 minutes without intermission. She also honors pauses for full comedic and dramatic effect, and establishes enough variety. One way she achieves this is by moving the lone performerthroughout the stage, so that she doesn’t become merely a talking head.
Olesen, who portrays multiple characters, seamlessly slips into and out of roles with natural changes of posture and voice. Also, credit Stodard and her team (particularly projection designer Jamie Godwin) for thinking up ways to visually convey disorder. For instance, toward the end of the show, the world depicted on the projector screens seems distorted by leaning to one side, suggesting an off-kilter universe impaired by destruction.
Olesen, wearing a yellow outfit and sporting long blonde hair as well as red lipstick, often smiles. She projects a cheery personality (think a young Reese Witherspoon) as she serves up sunny weather forecasts. But that smile doesn’t always convey cheer. It can mask darker emotions and suggest sarcasm, which Olesen’s Gross believably spews.
The performer also deftly delivers deadpan expressions that enhance the irony and comedy of a line or passage. In addition, she emphasizes words while slowing down to further enhance the comic effect.
Olesen excels at seamlessly switching personas, changing effortlessly between bright charisma, vulnerability, fierceness and fearlessness. Olesen also skillfully portrays other characters, such as Gross’s mother and an elderly man. The actor seems every bit as skillful and energetic as gifted performer Mark H. Dold, who captivated GableStage audiences with his shapeshifting performances as multiple people in "Harry Clarke" last season. With a change in posture and tone of voice, while pretending to hold a cane, Olesen embodies senior citizens with as much naturalness and spontaneity as she displays as Gross.
Jamie Godwin's projections are one of the show's highlights. (Photo by Magnus Stark, courtesy of GableStage)
Scenic designer Frank J. Oliva has created a minimalist and dark set that becomes almost a blank canvas for the play’s world. When we enter the theater, we witness this sparse environment that includes three circular spots on the floor (are they entrances to somewhere below or just three different places to stand, we may wonder). Higher up, we notice three large screens video screens. The couple of remaining set pieces include stands and what resembles a mug.
The set is spacious, yet claustrophobic, essentially trapping Stacey in a world of environmental destruction; it seems that there are no openings or windows to the outside world. As it turns out, one of the circles on the ground becomes an outdoor patch of grass. What initially seems like a dark, enclosed environment imprisoning Stacey turns out to open up into the outside world, suggesting that things aren’t necessarily what they initially appear to be.
Sound designer Bree-Anna Obst’s solid work allows us to clearly hear and understand everything the performer says. Also, Obst has created a soundscape that, to her credit, sounds unpleasant at times. This play is a cautionary piece that is supposed to make us uncomfortable, reminding us that ignorance and apathy about climate change can have devastating and permanent consequences. The jarring sounds are like clarion calls to action. At other appropriate times, Obst’s soundscape turns otherworldly as the show turns surreal.
In addition to directing, Stodard designed Gross’s appealing yellow outfit. Its bright color reflects the character’s sometimes outwardly charismatic and sunny demeanor. The brightness also makes Gross’s eventual dark turn more upsetting.
Lighting designer Jessica Winward illuminates the stage brightly and realistically, but also in darker shades, such as red, blue and purple, to reflect the script’s dark, otherworldly turns.
Frank J. Oliva's set features three glossy black circles. (Photo by Magnus Stark, courtesy of GableStage)
A recurring motif in the play is that Gross experiences a “pull” toward the ground. Its significance is never completely clear, but one can think of the pull as an element of magical realism, like her inherited ability to suddenly conjure water. That ability may represent Gross’s inclination toward doing good, while the pull toward the ground may symbolize Satan luring her toward evil deeds. We witness Gross’s baser instincts toward the end of the play, such as her desire to crash her date’s car. Olesen physicalizes her baser instincts by getting on all fours like a wild animal in attack mode. At one point, she unleashes a primal scream during which Gross seems to release intense, long-pent-up emotions like lava from a volcano.
While Olesen often speaks as her characters, she also uses pauses to dramatic effect. For example, toward the end, Gross must deliver a scripted forecast that reports a “mild” temperature of more than 100 degrees. After saying mild, she pauses before uncomfortably stating the actual temperature.
In “Weather Girl,” Watkins seems most intent on awakening us to human responsibility, the dangers of denying climate change, and apathy in the face of it. Toward the end of the play, Gross’s bosses suggest that they’re aware of the danger posed by a raging wildfire. However, they force her to deliver an upbeat forecast in a happy voice, as though all is calm and clear. At another point, people are happily dancing in a club-like establishment, ignoring the worsening climate crisis outside. This scene calls to mind the apathetic customers of the Kit Kat Klub in “Cabaret,” ignoring and even denying the increasing danger posed by the rise of Nazism.
Gross is hardly blameless. She not only smiles through the raging wildfire, but acts destructively toward herself by continually downing Prosecco and knowingly wrecking her date’s car. At the end, even when she is able to harness her power of conjuring water, she purposely drips it onto the floor instead of using it to help quell the wildfire.
Reporting live from Fresno! Ella Olesen stars as a California weather girl who struggles to deliver forecasts about our climate-stricken planet with unflinching optimism. (Photo by Magnus Stark, courtesy of GableStage)
Gross’s mother is a literal stand-in for Mother Earth. Others have discarded her like people have razed the earth. Perhaps that’s why the playwright doesn’t name the weather forecaster’s mother. She’s less of a person and more of a rejected piece of trash. But the older woman isn’t an outright villain. She’s a mysterious figure with water-conjuring abilities, if only she’d use her power for good instead of using drugs and viewing the light and frothy musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie” as the wildfire rages. The show is an escape for her. Mother and daughter are estranged, much as humanity’s own relationship with Mother Earth is fractured.
Watkins uses magical realism to make a pertinent point: We may not be able to magically conjure water, but we each possess talents to improve the planet in our own ways. The playwright drives this message home without preaching too much. He tells a dark tale with copious amounts of humor, disarming us so that we’re primed for the alarming material.
In the end, “Weather Girl” is an incisive look at how each of us is complicit in creating the mess that plagues Mother Earth and not caring enough to do something about it. The play sounds an alarm about a long-standing problem that too many of us ignore by closing our eyes. “Weather Girl” is an entertaining, eye-opening play that reminds us that while issues such as climate change aren’t going away, we’re not powerless to stop them from inflicting lasting damage to the planet.
WHAT: “Weather Girl” by Brian Watkins
WHEN: Through Sunday, Oct. 18.
WHERE: The Wolfson Family Theatre at GableStage, 1200 Anastasia Ave., in the historic Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables.
INFO: Tickets start at $50. Students and teachers may attend any performance for free by arriving 45 minutes before curtain and filling any open, unsold seat. Valid ID is required. Tickets are available at gablestage.org and by contacting the box office at (305) 445-1119.
