2019 Fringe Festival Review: Last Days on Krypton

In dire times like these, when we’ve begun to feel the effects of the climate crisis descending upon us, maybe the last thing we want to do is laugh about it. However, Mav Adece, creator and performer of Last Days on Krypton, gets us to do exactly that. In a one-hour show that makes you realize you can, in fact, switch back and forth between uproarious laughter and anxious chuckles, Mav takes us to a resource extraction state constantly ignoring its self-caused doom: Alberta … err, Krypton.

To an audience unfamiliar with the ecocidal situation that Alberta has created over the last few decades, key parts of the show may lessen their impact, but they certainly don’t completely lose them. The show finds its brilliance when Mav builds up the parallels needed to understand the situation by centering his set around childhood cartoon shows and their seemingly outlandish and absurd villains and plots. The premise of the show clearly crystallizes into the revelation that the rich and powerful are leading us to outcomes that villains such as Cobra Commander would revel in.

The goals which Mav comes to his audience with are quite special. The first goal, to make us laugh, is met within seconds of his set beginning. The second, and without a doubt tougher, goal is to lead us in demanding better conditions than the ones we are currently routed towards. Here, his ability to seamlessly intertwine moments of comedy with moments of existential thought demonstrate exactly how he shines. To say that the show takes breaks between jokes to share its fears would be reductive. Instead, this show is made specifically because Mav knows that he can, and should, prompt us to action. He calls back to the ineffective environmentalist “solutions” of cartoons past and of governments present.

If you fear what will become of the world in 10 years if nothing is done, watch this show. You’ll leave a little bit less scared, and a lot more ready to unite together to act against climate change.