Part of the Edinburgh Fringe digital collection at C Arts, Nicole Gluckstern’s The Forever Wave is set in a San Francisco of 2070, where climate change has caused a catastrophic change in the landscape. You can read my interview with Gluckstern here,
Inspired by Under Milk Wood, this is an audio drama for voices, with carefully chosen recordings and songs threaded through the accounts of the rescuers, the survivors, and the dead.
This is ambitious fare, speculating on a story that might happen in our future, but hasn’t yet. Eleven actors – Roy Conboy, Jerikka Gamboa, Aaliyah Gilliard, Peter Griggs, Nathaniel Justiniano, Julia Letzel, Mia Paschal, Krystle Piamonte, Edna Mira Raia, Patrick Simms, Megan Trout and Lluis Valls provide the voices in this show, which has now been touring world fringes since 2023.
Capitalist and colonialism are important in the San Francisco inhabited before The Forever Wave. As waves rushed and rose, hurricanes and torrential storms rages, attention was not paid.
The wave that would never recede was to wipe out the city, with those in denial or poverty left behind. In this deeply visual piece, we can recall what our world looked like in our youth, and what has changed.
Characters are foregrounded in the dark in the same way Dylan Thomas populated Llareggub. The voices of the drowned plague El Capitan, who watches the water rises and dreams. Other characters reveal their own stories from their own places.
That’s all very well – and makes for an entertaining listen – but if you know Under Milk Wood, Gluckstern sails just a bit too close to scenes like the Ogmore-Pritchard household, Captain Cat, Rosie Probert and Polly Garter scenes.
Where this could have been a truly original multi-voice drama on an important topic that will affect some of us later in life suffers a bit from this imitation. Characters who cannot be mapped onto their Welsh counterparts come across with much more energy and power.
At 1 hour 25, The Forever Wave is also a little lengthy, and despite making the wider catastrophe personal, it doesn’t quite travel emotionally as it might with tighter, more considered writing.
I would also note that the way the inhabitants live forty years on is very similar to now, with no attempt to update language, socialising, or how humans interact with each other.
Cliff Carruthers’ sound design is crucial to the idea of an island culture struggling to exist, and the music by Banda Sin Nombre and Mark Growden adds potency.
It’s an intriguing piece, but I have reservations about it. I’m giving it 3 stars.
The Forever Wave is part of Edinburgh Fringe‘s digital offering, available on C Arts until 31 Aug.