Come Along for the Ride: A Journey through Climate Grief
By Frankie Pinchard
Play Review from Copenhagen Fringe Festival, May 2024
“Come Along for the Ride” is a satirical dystopian play written by Eco.Logic Executive Director, Rozina Kanchwala, about climate change and climate anxiety. A shortened adaptation was internationally performed in May 2024 at the Copenhagen Fringe Festival
“Healing happens in community.”
Nestled in the Nørrebro neighbourhood of Copenhagen, two girlfriends and I cycled one spring evening to the Copenhagen Fringe Festival to watch Come Along For The Ride: A Journey through Climate Grief, directed by Christof Gleie. It felt fitting to see a play about climate change in Copenhagen, one of Europe’s greenest cities.
The play opens with a striking visual of two women in Personal Protective Equipment in 2074 as they reminisce of the days when they could explore the woodlands and listen to birdsong, when they could breathe clean air for free. “How did we get here?” The two women ask each other as they express guilt and regret for investing their money in companies that destroyed the world. In this dystopian world, food is replaced by nutrient-rich artificially produced jellies and long-gone are the days of cooking a meal with family and friends, as everything is now in the name of efficiency.
The dystopian world is satirical enough that members of the audiences could chuckle among themselves; but not too far-fetched that I still felt nervous and cringed when the characters mentioned the irreversible implementation of technology such as AI Voice helpers or tracking and recording REM sleep. (At which point my friend and I grimaced at each other, being big fans of the SleepCycle app.)
Then, flashbacking to 2024, one friend, Marisol, prepared for her baby shower whilst contemplating what it meant to bring a child into the world in this environment. She showed clear signs of climate anxiety and how it feels to make decisions, often on our own, in a world where our climate is changing dramatically almost every season.
Meanwhile, the other main character, Sophie, meets a boy at a climate rally in Pittsburgh. It is a light-hearted and humorous moment and brings attention to the importance of community, friendship, and love in an era that often feels apocalyptic. In my favourite moment, Sophie loses her temper over a BP and Exxon advertisement about their new carbon capture scheme. It captures the fury that a lot of us feel when huge environmentally damaging corporations all of a sudden seem to have a new and improved ESG policy that often is just another example of green-washing.
The use of satire and humour kept the audience engaged and positive. It is too often the case that opening up discussions about climate results in fear-mongering and makes people, myself included, switch off if we start to feel powerless.
The play finishes with a dramatic apocalyptic scene in 2074, but in a turn of events, without giving away the ending, the main characters provide us with a clear call to action before it truly is too late.
Speaking to the actors after the performance, I wondered: What role do the arts play in climate change?
Karen, who played Marisol, is an Italian woman in her late twenties who said she felt anxious about the future of our planet; she expressed how she resonated deeply with her character and the ethical questions around having children. She spoke of how she went vegetarian for seven years because she felt such guilt around the climate crisis, but ultimately the change of diet began to affect her health. In the play, her family gets stopped at the US-Mexican border and through her story we also see how climate and immigration intersect. She said this addition to her story was extremely ‘meaningful’ – and , with the rise of ‘climate refugees’ in recent years, I would completely agree.
Jakob, who is half-Danish and half-American, expressed his fear of AI and technology in the future and the inability of ‘career-politicians’ to act on climate change. But when I asked what makes him hopeful about the future, he responded that:
‘The characters care about climate-change. They recognise that we cannot wait for the government but that there is strength in collective power.’
Reflecting on her play, Rozina explained how:
‘Playwriting started off as a way for me to cope with my own climate anxiety. But what I learned is that theater is a powerful way to bring people together and have a conversation in community around climate anxiety.’
Through humor and storytelling, Come Along for the Ride invites audiences to confront climate anxiety and engage in conversations about collective action and hope for a sustainable future. Can the power of theater truly inspire us to confront our climate anxieties and work together for a better world? Based on what I saw, ultimately, I think it can.
