Hot Mess and the Reign of Acid: A romantic comedy and quirky cabaret film that highlights the climate crisis | Musicals

eArth is a single woman with a lot to offer; Humanity is a charismatic bad boy who turns out to be an inherent accepter. Their toxic relationship is chronicled in Hot Mess, a musical created by Jack Godfrey and Eli Cott, which functions as both a whimsical romantic comedy with broad commercial appeal and a serious metaphor for our abuse of the once-fertile, now depleted planet. It was a hot ticket on the fringes of Edinburgh last summer and now in London, at the forefront of a new kind of musical about the environmental crisis.

The RSC’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind uses a lively song and dance take on the true story of a teenager who builds a wind turbine from an old bicycle in drought-stricken Malawi. Bryony Kimmings’s Bog Witch is a one-woman show with music and attitude about the plight of the planet, while in New York the folk-pop Dear Everything was a response to the climate emergency co-written by V (ex-Eve Ensler) and narrated by Jane Fonda. Meanwhile, in Hadestown’s battered West End, empty oil drums litter the inferno.

It’s interesting that there are more writers tackling this topic, says Cote, who adds that climate anxiety “is so prevalent that it would be wild if art forms didn’t deal with it, actually.”

Remarkably, these shows resonate with a post-pandemic yearning for feel-good stories about banding together and being more responsible with the Earth. If this sounds worthy, Cote and Godfrey went through a six-year process to ensure that their music deviated from any hackneyed controversy or leaden tone. “We’re both passionate about the climate crisis and were talking about wanting to write something about the issue,” Godfrey says. “But how do you do it in a way that is entertaining and can give people the full musical theater experience without being pessimistic or lecturing?”

Initially, the show was tonally more serious but that changed in early development. “If you put it in people’s minds that it’s about the climate crisis, you’re going to feel like the audience isn’t fully engaged because you’re sitting in too big of a space. So when we got to writing the script for the show, [Edinburgh] Marginally, one of our big notes to ourselves was: “How can we disarm the audience so that they engage with the story emotionally and comedically so that all of these themes can be explored more organically?” says Cote.

Finley Carroll, associate producer of Hot Mess, has created a production company, Pollinate, dedicated to climate musicals. He sees no conflict between the potentially dark subject and the inherently enhancing energy of the form. “Entertainment and serious themes are not incompatible…Musicals have always dealt with big and complex themes as well. There is a great deal of tragedy and shock in Les Misérables.”

What was key, Godfrey says, was emotional investment, which in the case of this musical was mixed with humor. As a lyricist, Godfrey loved the challenge of writing witty songs with double meanings that referenced environmental science as well as sex and love: “To get people to care about something, you don’t tell them, ‘You gotta care.’” You give them a reason to invest. For us, this is often finding the humor in something and being relatable. Everyone has been on a bad date or felt like they would never find the right person.

While climate plays often revolve around pessimistic or dystopian scenarios, the musical as a form is hopeful, suggests Luke Howarth. He is co-writer and director of Acid’s Reign, a musical running on the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.

Such plays, he says, “are often post-apocalyptic — the terrible thing has happened. And I think there’s a surrender to that.” “We’ve written the end of the world many times but what we need to write instead is something alternative.”

The musical form encourages the idea that change is possible, and Carroll agrees. “So it’s about how we envision a new prosperous and abundant climate future. Because ultimately we need to see those futures on a stage before we can create them in our own lives.”

Acid Reign attempts to do just that. A mix of song, glamour, and wacky energy, it’s cabaret starring Victoria Scone (of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK) and… Gigi Zahir (supporting work for Chappelle Rowan), about a singing group that sings about the climate crisis but faces an ethical dilemma when the prospect of commercial success requires toning down their message.

Historically, there’s been a perception that climate activists and environmentalists want to end the party, Howarth says, but the goal of this musical was to create something radically joyful. “In my opinion, cabaret and drag, in their DNA, are about irreverence and playful questioning of power structures. So lip syncing is about bringing other voices into the space, reframing them, and allowing us to laugh at things that take themselves too seriously. I’ve been, for a long time, very passionate about comedy, and especially cabaret’s ability to do that, to do something very serious, in a very fun way.”

While these musicals may be responsible for diluting the message, or highlighting the climate crisis, Howarth feels strongly that this is not the case. He believes that there is much greater inclusivity in musical works due to their popular reach. “Often, a serious two-hour diatribe has an element of privilege. The audience who will watch it must have the emotional capacity and desire to sit in the theater like a drug.”

Is advocacy for climate action or climate activism incorporated into such musicals? Lucy Stone is founder and CEO of the collective Climate Spring, which this year launched the inaugural Climate Theater Prize for plays (excluding musicals), created to inspire and support more playwrights to tackle this topic. Stone says there’s interesting scientific research on audiences watching live shows together, which may encourage a sense of togetherness. “The audience starts to sync up, including their heart rates, so there’s a shared energy in the room… Creating one play for social change is a big question, but what does it add collectively? We’ve seen throughout history that our stories can change social norms, so what is socially acceptable, what is collectively taboo, what is collectively seen as acceptable… We hope this will change the way people feel and in turn lead to change.”

Carroll also believes some of the performances will motivate audiences. But just providing an emotional outlet may also be enough. Drawing on his own experience watching Jonathan Larson’s musical Rent, about young New York artists living through the HIV/AIDS crisis, he says, “Listening to the soundtrack allowed me to place myself within that history. I didn’t go away and do anything different that I could identify, but knowledge and awareness, and especially the ability to emotionally understand an issue, can be transformative in itself.”