'It's really a silly piece about how humanity is ... addicted to fossil fuels,' says performer John Jarboe

CBC Radio · Read at cbc.ca
By Jason Vermes
Feb 26, 2023

In an ironic twist, a Philadelphia drag show that aims to bring attention to climate change through ice dancing was cancelled thanks to a melting rink in the middle of February.

Philadelphia faced its warmest January in 91 years — with average temperatures about 10 F above normal daytime highs — and saw only trace amounts of snow on the last day of the month, according to the National Weather Service. 

The unseasonably warm temperatures have continued into February, with lots of sun, turning the rink partially into slush and making it dangerous to skate.

"So we had to cancel the opening night of our climate change-themed drag ice show [on Feb. 17] because of climate change," said John Jarboe — artistic director of Bearded Ladies Cabaret, the company staging the show — in an interview with What On Earth's Laura Lynch. 

Beards on Ice: Edging — which includes a "girl gang" of fossil fuels performing pop hits on skates — is an admittedly camp way to address rising global temperatures, says performer and former competitive figure skater David Devan.

"The premise is if we can get drag queens out of heels and into skates, maybe we could actually do something about the climate crisis as opposed to just talk about it," said Devan, who plays Oil.

But that campy approach is resonating with activists and audiences alike.

"What we're hearing from the climate activists that we're talking to is like, 'Oh, it feels so good to have some joy and absurdity brought into this conversation,'" said Jarboe. 

"It's really a silly piece about how humanity is an addict, or addicted to fossil fuels."

Drag has a unique ability to address issues like these in an accessible way, said Devan, who is also the director and president of Opera Philadelphia.

"In its extreme, it can deal with things with a camp level that lets down your guard and brings you into a moment and a space, and then sort of wallops you ... with the truth," he told Lynch.

Homo Sapiens vs. Fossil Fuels

In the show, Miss Homo Sapiens, played by Jarboe, relies on the girl gang — Coal, Natural Gas and Oil — to give her energy and keep the show going. Soon after, Glacier takes to the rink performing Céline Dion's My Heart Will Go On, as Oil and the fossil fuel friends dismantle her until she's sans costume on the ice.

Glacier comes to realize that the fossil fuels aren't her friend and "kneecaps them with a crowbar to get them off the ice," said Jarboe, causing a power blackout at the rink. 

"So we collect the audience's money to pay for the carbon that we're using to make the ice show happen," she added, describing the show's reference to carbon credits.

Non-Binary Parental Guardian Nature, with an Ariana Grande number, then skates out to warn the audience that paying for carbon is but a placebo for actually reducing their reliance on fossil fuels.

Nuclear Power also makes an appearance, and in a nod to concerns around the dangers of producing energy from this source, sings a mashup of Britney Spears' Toxic and music from the Carl Orff opera Carmina Burana.

"A lot of the impulse behind the show is to bring a sense of absurdity, joy, playfulness, a really bad pun and some really amazing skating — and some really mediocre skating — into this dialogue around climate justice," said Jarboe.

Bearded Ladies Cabaret were able to stage the show the following day.

The show partnered with groups like Philadelphia Climate Works, PennEnvironment and Philadelphia Jobs with Justice, who ran tables at the event, to provide the audience with ways to take action after the show.

Jarboe says that the event is about more than just bringing attention to the climate crisis. She says she hopes it can bring attention to related issues, such as racial justice and homelessness in the city.

"Drag and queer performance is an act of survival and the climate issue is the issue of survival, so I think they're actually quite aligned," Jarboe said.