‘I no longer think of this as a technological problem. I don’t think of it as a political problem.” Alanna Mitchell is assessing the climate emergency. “I think of it as a cultural problem.” The Canadian journalist and playwright believes the arts play a key role in transforming public opinion. “That’s the way humans understand the world,” insists Mitchell. “We understand it in terms of narrative.”
Some of the most successful environmental activism has used theatrical or artistic gestures to capture imaginations. Think of Extinction Rebellion’s dramatic funeral marches, or Liberate Tate’s oil spill installations. At the Edinburgh festival this month, theatre-makers are bringing the crisis to the fore, from drawing the links between colonialism and the changing climate in Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools to Tom Bailey’s meditation on the sixth mass extinction in Vigil.
Theatre is not Mitchell’s natural environment. “I’m not a performer, I’m a journalist,” she stresses. But transforming her 2010 book Sea Sick into a solo show allowed her to reach different audiences with her message about the terrifying impact of carbon emissions on our seas. “We are changing the chemistry of the ocean. And not just part of it – the whole global ocean down to a kilometre deep.”
Facing the magnitude of such findings can be overwhelming. As theatre-maker Anita Rochon puts it, the climate crisis throws into question our entire existence and ways of living. Her show Pathetic Fallacy, which is playing at Edinburgh’s Canada Hub alongside Sea Sick, explores humanity’s complex relationship with the elements, from weather gods to the naming of storms, circling around the climate crisis without ever directly discussing it. Pathetic Fallacy also confronts something that eco-theatre has been coy about: the environmental impact of making and touring theatre shows. The play is taken on by a different local actor at each performance, removing the need for Rochon to jet around the world.
The British theatre company Boxed In are also trying to make the way in which theatre is made more environmentally friendly. Throughout the Edinburgh fringe, their purpose-built venue The Greenhouse – constructed entirely from recycled materials and doing without mains electricity – will be hosting shows and workshops responding to the climate emergency. As part of their zero-waste commitment, the company will be marketing the programme without a single flyer. “We need to make these big leaps so that we can show it’s possible, and so that hopefully other people will take up the mantle,” says artistic director Oli Savage.
At the Edinburgh international festival, meanwhile, a residency by the Royal Court theatre involves writers from Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Syria to highlight global perspectives on the climate emergency that we rarely hear in the UK.
All these theatre-makers identify a renewed sense of urgency around the climate crisis, largely thanks to the actions of the school strikers and Extinction Rebellion (which is curating a season of work at Edinburgh’s Summerhall venue). But these artists see themselves as storytellers, not activists: their role is not to provide solutions but to provoke thought. “People always ask me after my play, ‘So what’s the one thing I need to do tomorrow to make this better?’” says Mitchell, explaining that she refuses to answer. “I hope you go home and you’re awake all night trying to think about what it is that you can do.”
Rochon agrees. “There’s not a bit at the end where I say, ‘Here are the resources you can check out afterwards and here’s five things that we can do,’” she says. “I think we all know what we can do.” Savage’s mindset is the same: “We’re not imparting ideas so much as inviting people to discuss ideas with us.”
Greta Thunberg has urged world leaders to “act as if our house is on fire”. But artists do not all agree. “We don’t want [audiences] to be scared and running about panicking,” says Savage, insisting on the importance of hope. The Royal Court’s international associate director Sam Pritchard agrees, observing a hint of optimism in how writers are addressing the climate crisis. “A dire prognosis is not the only artistic tone, voice or response to this subject,” he suggests.
At its most ambitious, this work challenges audiences, theatres and other artists to completely rethink the system. “The way we make art now can’t be the way we continue to make art,” says Savage. “Just like the way that society functions can’t be the way that it continues to function if we’re hoping to avert this oncoming crisis.”
