Julia McDermott (Photo: Emilio Madrid)

Weather Girl

By Deirdre Donovan

Weather Girl, Brian Watkins's searing dark comedy, stars Julia McDermott as a California television weather forecaster whose sunny façade cracks under the weight of personal chaos and planetary collapse. Directed by Tyne Rafaeli and produced by the team behind Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, this solo show careens between biting satire and scorched-earth confession.

McDermott's Stacey sets the tone from the very first scene, offering not only a weather bulletin on California's wildfires but also an emotional forecast of her own, delivered in a stream-of-consciousness rush.

Stacey: "And at a quarter past four you feel all the destroyed things swimming around in the dark, and when you do the weather here in California you can sometimes feel the devil's breath right at your earlobe."

 

Julia McDermott (Photo: Emilio Madrid)

Isabella Byrd's minimalist set and inventive lighting design prove strikingly effective. A simple studio green screen serves as the backdrop, gradually morphing into fiery shades of red and orange to evoke California's raging wildfires. The lighting deftly shifts from the artificial glow of a TV studio to an apocalyptic darkness, underscoring the play's escalating tension.

At its core, Weather Girl follows Stacey Gross, a Fresno TV personality whose cheery on-air persona masks a life unraveling off screen. Pressured by her station to gloss over California's worsening droughts and wildfires, she numbs herself with alcohol ("I sip from my travel mug and no one knows it's not coffee but actually Prosecco in there") while wrestling with childhood abandonment and the bleak prospects of a climate in free fall. When she reunites with her estranged mother, Stacey uncovers an unexpected inheritance-one that could shift the course of her own life, and perhaps the planet's future.

McDermott channels the gutsiness of a stand-up comic with the command of a seasoned stage actor. As Stacey, she's riveting to watch-a tough, no-nonsense truth-teller who won't sugarcoat California's three-year drought or its raging wildfires. More than that, she rips away the veil, exposing how those in power can suppress the facts, manipulate the news, or simply act recklessly. Or as Stacey puts it: "I'm reporting from the field covering the Coalinga wildfire and waiting for the morning news crew to throw it my way, but they're bantering about Chomper the baby hippo at the Fresno Zoo."

Admittedly, Watkins's script has its rough patches, particularly in its treatment of Stacey's relationship with her homeless mother, which never feels fully developed. We learn early on that Stacey was raised by foster parents after her birth mother chose drugs over providing a stable home. Yet the play takes a striking turn when Stacey discovers her mother possesses a miraculous gift: the ability to summon water in the midst of drought and wildfire. She calls it a "lost art," a power once wielded by Moses but long forgotten in the modern age. Indeed, Stacey is altogether intrigued by her mother's mysterious power: "And soon she's telling me how people can find water and conjure water and move water like Moses splitting the red sea and Jesus with the miracles and mermaids and water divining."

Rafaeli directs the 70-minute play with taut precision, keeping the monologue free of dead spots. Alongside Stacey's fraught relationship with her mother, Weather Girl follows her encounters with colleagues-most notably a boss who tempts her with a lucrative promotion in Phoenix, which she pointedly declines despite the promise of doubling her salary. Her personal life proves no steadier: her boyfriend, consumed by his love of flashy sports cars, coaxes her into a reckless joyride that leaves them both shaken and regretful.

Julia McDermott (Photo: Emilio Madrid)

With the devastating Los Angeles wildfires this past January still fresh in memory, Weather Girl-though written beforehand-carries an undeniable urgency for audiences. Playwright Watkins has described the piece as a "love letter to California," and indeed, it resonates as both tribute and warning.

Having premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe before transferring to a successful West End run, Weather Girl now arrives at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, where this tragi-satirical monologue and personal confession finds a timely home. Both urgent in its warnings and arresting in its theatricality, this dark comedy leaves audiences unsettled, amused, and-perhaps-just a little more alert to the gathering storm.

Weather Girl

At St. Ann's Warehouse, 45 Water Street, Brooklyn

For more information, visit www.stannswarehouse.org

Running Time: 1 hour; 10 minutes with no intermission

Through October 12