Rozina Kanchwala nails it: we in the U.S. live in a world of too many choices, where a girl can just ask Google to serve up a song instantly to match her mood. It’s a time when everyone is so busy doing whatever they do in their lives (and scrolling through their iPhone apps,) there’s no time for any real human connection. So it is no wonder that our central character wails to the universe, “Why is it so hard to find love?”
There are no real revelations in the comedy Love in the Time of Climate Change, but Kanchwala has a knack for sit-com writing, and she has created in her central character, Kamila, a young woman just neurotic enough to keep the antics flying but one whose tender heart wins us over.
Carmen Hernandez plays Kamila, and she does it careening between tearful angst about the planet and a whacky self-absorption. In the middle of an earnest political tirade, she wonders about whether to wash her hair. Hernandez has a pleasing manner and is adept both at connecting with the audience during her monologues and interacting with other characters in ways that allows us to follow her thought processes and mood changes.
Love in the Time of Climate Change at Capital Fringe closes July 27, 2019
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The play has some delightfully clever moments, and the best are when they are grounded in a specific situation. Kamila’s tearing through layers of Amazon packing to discover the tiny eco-candle she has ordered reminded me of those Russian nesting dolls that get reduced to nubbins. Kamila’s bewilderment turns to fury, when later in the play she marches into an Amazon service center and lays into a minimum-wage clerk where she demands he should single handedly stop the climate change clock’s ticking, to “make it right.”
The theme of bad dates found through dating apps is sustained comically in short vignettes. Even the most absurd dating profile made me chuckle while being wincingly recognizable. There’s the dude so paralyzed with fear on the date that he gets bowel cramps. There’s the over-the-top, shocking-pink-mopped hair guy, tripping on Lord knows what, who seriously wants to know which super hero Kamila is. The sweaty, rolly-polly salsa lover bears on her too closely but at the same time seems more interested in taking a selfie of himself with his food than focusing on his date. Good for the playwright that Mr. Salsa Lover, played convincingly by Alan McQuinn, gets to move through somewhat of an arc of development.
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The others have little to no development and unfortunately become reduced mouth-pieces. The self-help group presided over by the yoga and meditation guru appropriately named Sage (Caroline Howe,) devolves pretty quickly. The potential love interest Aiden (Andres Rosario) is set up as a political activist leader but doesn’t get enough time or substance to remain anything but shadowy. Even Nayeli Pelayo’s portrayal of a Central American immigrant forced by climate change and violence to resettle locally speaks only through politically correct sound bites, cutting off any chance to really root for her.
Sadly, there were also some technical glitches with the power on opening night, so the houselights were improvised to replace stage lighting. But thankfully, they only negatively affected our ability to see the comic projection of scrolling headshots from the bad dates.
The great thing for these young artists is they performed to a full house. This audience, clearly primed as TV watchers, did wander into the theatre late and throughout the performance, as if coming in and picking up their show after intermission. It says something about the writing and the expectations of television-fed audiences that nothing much was missed.
It’s an important topic, and I was drawn to the play for that reason. To the credit of this creative team, the members seem genuinely interested in raising awareness and extending the conversation. Beneath this whacky comedy, there’s nonetheless a call for all of us to take action for climate justice. And well we should.
Love in the Time of Climate Change by Rozina Kanchwala. Directed by Samsa Ali, Rozina Kanchwals and Kirsten Ramsey. Music and Projections by Rozina Kanchiwala, Devin Overbey, and Tasneem Sheriff. Props by Kisten Rumsey. With Carm Hernandez, Andres Rsario, Nayeli Pelayo, Kim Simpson, Albert Arevelo, Carolin Howe, Alan McQuinn, and Benjamin Licht. Reviewed by Susan Galbraith.
