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The Beautiful Future Is Coming

 
Alec Martin Review by Alec Martin 3 Published: 8 Aug 2025 Traverse Theatre Show Dates: 29 Jul 2025-24 Aug 2025

Nancy Medina’s slick direction and the cast’s poised energy give The Beautiful Future Is Coming a sumptuous sheen as we glide between Flora Wilson Brown’s three timelines: Eunice Foote’s 1850s laboratory, a sweltering summer in 2027 London, and a storm-lashed agricultural research hub on Svalbard in 2100. Scene changes are deft, performances are assured, and the script’s hopscotch structure clicks smoothly together – it’s an altogether polished production.

Without richer stakes or sharper insight, the show’s promises evaporate like puddles in a heatwave

Yet polish can’t entirely mask an undernourished core. While each of the three narratives promises a distinct slant on climate chaos, none really digs very deep. Eunice’s pioneering CO₂ experiments spark interest, only to stall in exposition about male gatekeepers. Claire’s office-romance thread circles a predictable workplace meltdown, the unlikely climax leaving both romance and rhetoric lukewarm. Future scientist Ana’s quest for flood-proof crops certainly carries high stakes, yet her scenes drown in didactic monologues while the world’s storms rage conveniently offstage. The men who orbit these women – from the mildly irksome Dan to the spectacularly grating Malcolm – feel like walking symbols rather than catalysts, so conflicts resolve more by authorial decree than dramatic combustion.

Each era highlights a different flavour of institutional inertia: Victorian dismissal of “lady scientists,” 2020s corporate greenwashing that drapes crisis in PR spin, and a later-century scramble where mitigation arrives decades too late. The thematic through-line is sound – action deferred becomes disaster compounded – but the play rarely lets these pressures collide with real urgency. Instead of hard choices and systemic pushback we get thumbnail sketches of complacency; the stakes feel discussed rather than lived.

There is genuine craft here: crisp pacing, a visually smart production, and actors squeezing every drop of nuance from lean dialogue. Alas, without richer stakes or sharper insight, the show’s promises evaporate like puddles in a heatwave.

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The Blurb:

1856, New York. Eunice sits in what will become Central Park and wonders if her research into CO2 is telling her something is going horribly wrong. 2027, London. Claire falls in love as the heatwave breaks, and the streets begin to flood. 2100, Svalbard. While an 86-day storm rages outside, Ana hears a baby crying in the seed vault. The world is ending, sure. But what happens in between? A fast-paced, funny and wildly inventive look at 250 years of real and imagined history through the eyes of three couples.