photo courtesy of liz skollar
When I sat down to watch “Bloom Bloom Pow,” a play which ran at Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres from Sept. 17 to Oct. 2, I was a bit worried that my (admittedly embarrassing) lack of knowledge about the 1954 cult classic “Creature from the Black Lagoon” would leave me lost, given its role as the inspiration for this show. But even without understanding its cultural significance, I need not have worried. Genevieve Simon’s “climate-doom comedy” expertly conveys the complex journey of facing the environmental crisis that is upon us, never leaving the audience behind even as it careens through outlandish characters and scenarios like a fever dream.
“Bloom Bloom Pow” follows Mag, played by Smith Alfieri, who returns to their hometown in Ohio to find that algae is overtaking the Great Lakes. Mag bounces between vignettes of daily life, interlaced with inventive manifestations of the climate crisis. The play explores how climate change weaves its way into our everyday lives — an increasingly important undertaking amid constant reports of ecological breakdown.
The written play’s reviews on New Play Exchange all express a desire to see it staged, and I can’t blame them — the production of this play is electrifying and elevates already sharp writing to an even more gripping experience. The night I attended, there was a full house of about 50 audience members, some of whom seemed taken aback by the closeness of the space but all of whom were clearly engaged from the moment the show began.
Personally, I was entranced by the tight grip the actors had on the characterization of their various roles. The cast consisted of only eight, with some playing multiple roles so well that I was often doing double-takes to figure out how they’d gotten onstage. The small cast size matched the theater size perfectly — the playing space came right up to the edge of the audience, and while the available area was limited, it was used effectively, carefully and intentionally.
When I entered, actors were stonily performing Foley sound effects and ominously swishing their hands around in bowls of water. Vignettes were often interlaced by an anthropomorphic manifestation of lake algae using a classroom projector to explain what has happened to Ohio’s Great Lakes. The all-green ensemble dripping with paint prompted my rotting brain to write down “it’s giving lagoon” in my notes. The show was filled with Foley effects throughout, retaining the immediate, intimate feel. These choices were supported by excellent lighting, drawing the viewer’s eye to remarkably compact scenes planted within the mostly-stationary clutter of the set at large, which seemed to have been decorated by a mad scientist with hoarding tendencies. These set choices contributed to the urgent feel of the piece.
The show is largely fast-paced, accentuated by stunning and surprising moments of elegant movement. The ensemble is a huge part of why the structure works. Their cohesive energy feels like elation one minute and abject panic the next, becoming “crazier and crazier as the world falls apart,” which Simon noted at a talkback with the playwright and some members of the cast and crew.
“Bloom Bloom Pow” is “emotionally autobiographical,” inspired by Simon’s own experience as an Ohio native who lived through Toledo’s water crisis in 2014, caused by algal bloom on Lake Erie. That algae is a part of environmental collapse, as phosphorus runoff from farms and septic systems pollutes water essential for ecosystems and communities alike. Simon said they “wanted to shift the focus away from ‘charismatic megafauna’” — victims of climate change that humans often rally around, like pandas or whales — toward smaller-scale crises of algae and ecosystems. The show turned out to be a quite powerful way to introduce audiences to those aspects of climate breakdown that are less understood, but are just as important.
As they navigate this algal bloom and their personal life, Mag proved to be a deeply relatable character for me in that they seem to have very little grasp on the passage of time. Within their conversations, Mag is audibly confused about how they got from one place to another, acknowledging the disjointed composition of the vignettes as if they are watching the play with us, not living it. This choice is a perfect replication of how life so often feels these days: you’re somewhere one minute, then you dissociate and suddenly you’re somewhere else.
Mag is also definitely queer, but their queer identity is just one part of a story largely about other things. It’s a relief to see someone be queer without apologizing for it, having to fight for it, or even talking about it in the abstract much at all. In an era of renewed onslaught in the United States toward queer people, especially transgender and non-binary people, allowing a character to tell a story that doesn’t center on struggling for acceptance about their identity is a breath of fresh air. During the talkback, Simon said they didn’t want to write a character who had to “come out on stage every night,” and I realized then how essential that kind of writing is to queer representation — and how much I wanted to see more.
Another notable character is A Dead Horse At The Bottom Of The East River Circa 1832, played by Jordan Mann. Arising out of the center-stage runway mid-show, the horse was an audience favorite, delivering bitingly funny commentary on pollution and how little had changed since 1832, underlaid with a current of desperation. Simon said that the Dead Horse’s introductory monologue was the first part of “Bloom Bloom Pow” they ever wrote, which is particularly impressive considering the depth and detail of the world that rose up around that initial idea. The Dead Horse is there to “help us understand the scale of this” — human activity has been harming the environment for centuries, and putting the Dead Horse from 1832 into conversation with present-day characters illuminates just how long we’ve let climate destruction go on. “It’s exciting to have a dead character on stage — it doesn’t hold the same stakes [as living characters],” said Simon. This technique allowed the Dead Horse to provide some disarming comic relief.
The Dead Horse, along with The Creature seductively zipping around on roller skates and the personified lake algae working the projector, add a whimsical element to a show that could easily have been much darker. Simon has a knack for capturing uncomfortably close-to-home feelings in quirky situations — the Great Lakes discussing the algae that has befallen them, coworkers standing amid trash and rubble doing gratitude exercises — and encouraging you to sit with them. Clever writing that’s lighthearted in all the right moments provides a bittersweet contrast to the heaviness of the subject at hand.
The first staging of this play was mere weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, and Simon said it has changed in both structure and spirit: “It’s gotten gayer as it goes on.” The pandemic imbued the show with stronger themes of “isolation and reentry.” The gratitude exercise scene, which once gently mocked Instagram wellness influencers, is now sincere. Simon said in this iteration of the show, they have used the experience of the pandemic to wonder, “What would people actually do at the end of the world?”
“Bloom Bloom Pow” demonstrates that all-too-familiar essence of feeling apocalyptic dread, but having little bandwidth to deal with anything beyond the daily routine. As one character says, “I just try to make it through the day and not think too hard about where this is all going.” Scenes at Mag’s workplace, an art museum, particularly encompass the increasingly frantic rush of everyday life as the world becomes harder to live in. To add to that sensation, the show’s staging makes it feel like “you’re on a rollercoaster and it’s coming at you,” Simon said. I felt that nothing summed up this feeling more than Mag’s remark that they feel so old — even though they’re only 24.
During the talkback, some audience members sought clarity about the meaning of the play’s ending, which culminates in a fever pitch, the vignettes all colliding around Mag. But Simon was reluctant to explain it: “I intentionally didn’t write a play with a single answer. Telling you what it meant doesn’t give the audience enough credit.” Simon reassured the question-askers that they could have “left-field conclusions,” and “as long as it worked for you, you saw the play.” According to Simon, this approach makes the piece more accessible, because any viewer can apply their own experiences and take away what they need from it.
“Bloom Bloom Pow” escapes what so often burdens climate-centered art of the 21st century, an unshakable sense of dread that incites more directionless panic than courageous initiative. That dread is no doubt part of this piece, as it must be given the reality of the situation, but it invites you in rather than pushing you away to dwell on your own complicity in climate change. “The piece always wanted to be in a smaller space” to create a sense of community, Simon said. Even at one of the show’s most intense points, as one of the Great Lakes slung heaps of plastic wrap from the stage to the rear of the audience and back again, I felt appropriately implicated in climate breakdown without feeling accused. The piece strikes a delicate balance of being pointed without being preachy, communicating a clear message of impending collapse that doesn’t say “This is your fault!” but instead asks “Are you feeling this too?”
Although this production has closed, Emory University has also recently staged a reading of “Bloom Bloom Pow” as part of their Earth Matters On Stage series. Simon says they want to get young people involved in this show, because it’s our future at stake. The future of “Bloom Bloom Pow” looks bright — let’s hope the future of the climate will too.