No One Is Coming To Save Us

Edinburgh Fringe – Pleasance

Academically speaking,  climate change is considered a ‘complex problem’. This means that there isn’t a simple solution, and will require actions from a cross-section of international actors to solve, an abstract problem with no one solution. This is the challenge that Lewis Hetherington’s No One Is Coming To Save US faces, as it brings a relatively abstract concept to life onstage. 

Pepperdine Scotland’s latest foray into theatrical activism, No One Is Coming To Save Us, is solid show with many strong aspects to it. The central narrative follows a group of friends over the course of several years and their transition to adulthood. The issue of climate change takes a back seat in some regard as the driving force is really the relationships within this peer group than the issue. The show covers a lot of ground, and in doing so appears unfocused in its plot and messaging. 

“The show covers a lot of ground, and in doing so appears unfocused in its plot and messaging.”

A particularly glaring issue with this show is the blocking. There’s too much entering and exiting off the stage by a large cast, mostly in one direction, which means that the show continually stops and starts. The scenes noticeably broken up, destroying any sense of flow to the piece. And it’s the fact that it’s a large group of people doing this maybe every 5 minutes or so which is in itself rather distracting. It is partially due to the fact the venue is too small for the size of the cast (hampered by the fact that there are a few superfluous characters that could be cut to save on space).

The moments of physical theater and movement that are used to build up moments of tension are really well put together as the urgency and movement really creates a senses of militaristic danger, and it would have been more interesting to see more of this to break-up the monologuing and conversations, which become a little tiresome the longer the show progresses. The script brings up some points about radicalisation, eco-terrorism, the idea of how far is too far that it briefly touches on but doesn’t particularly expand upon too much, probably due to time constraints. Also the driving force behind this shift in attitude to the environment is rather reductive and problematic making us ask, “Shouldn’t we care about climate change anyway and not just because it might affect us personally one day?”

The cast themselves are talented, there’s a believability and naturalism to the way that they express themselves and the character arcs and relationships that they build between themselves The four narrators – Jamison Rosales, Soren Miller, Hailey Lee, Jack Cottrell – carry the show forward through their words, adding a rhythm to the proceedings, context, and emotionality to moments within the story. Their individual stories, their presence as these ghosts of consequence are a surrealist addition, bringing the climate crisis into focus on the individual level, the personal cost rather than impersonal numbers in a newspaper that we would see after a disaster, and decontextualised our own desensitisation to the news cycle. Nathan Slendarian gives a masterful performance as Darryl, showing us enough of this character for us to fill in the blanks ourselves to the point where we start to anticipate seeing the completion of this character’s arc in particular.

There isn’t any doubt that the issues that No One Is Coming To Save Us are important, of course they are. The focus on the individual stories, the development of which seems rather small and insignificant compared to well, the climate crisis and so limits how much of an impact and sense of urgency it creates.

By Katerina Partolina Schwartz

Photo Credit: Brittney Lucy