Ever since global warming came to public consciousness, we’ve had plays about climate. Most of them are a call to action in some way, using the power of theatre to channel emotions, to draw us to the personal, to try and make us care. And, as a character wryly observes early on in Scenes from the Climate Era, these plays sometimes aren’t the kind of relaxing entertainment an audience wants to see.

Scenes from the Climate Era is a departure from that call to action.  Australian playwright David Finnegan has a long list of qualifications, including having won awards for some of the aforementioned traditional climate plays and being the son of a climate scientist.

Scenes from the Climate Era is a series of small observations, snapshots of conversations, stories of both present day and imagined future. It’s not a call to stop climate change, because that time has already passed, and maybe was already too late even 20 years ago. It’s both afterparty and wake as we come to terms with that idea and face the terrifying truth that we are already in the middle of unstoppable climate change.

The play is a recent work, commissioned by and debuting at Belvoir St Theatre in 2023. In this NZ premiere the five actors – Dawn Cheong, Nī Dekkers-Reihana, Arlo Green, Sean Dioneda Rivera and Amanda Tito – work at pace to showcase a cascade of characters caught between inaction and urgency. Some scenes last less than a minute, and the play never returns to the same set of characters. From scientists to activists, corporate industry workers to families directly affected by climate events, Scenes from the Climate Era is a series of micro plays, whipping us from recent past to the imagined near future. We see the human moments, the logic fails, the inconvenient truths about ourselves. Not all of the characters are human.

Finnegan has a deft touch. His scenes are often funny, definitely entertaining, certainly not relaxing. The effect is of a vast canvas – the history of climate change awareness, response and action from personal to global – being sketched dot by tiny dot. Improbably, at the end of 80 minutes, there’s a kind of neural map of what has happened. Finnegan moves his lens quickly, with no apparent rhythm or pattern. When he lingers, there is space for us to breathe, to feel. He doesn’t offer solutions or hold up any suggested responses. He has chosen simply to witness, and we as the audience are left to gather our conclusions, if we so choose. 

Some might find this annoying, but I find this a valid approach to telling the story of climate change. As Finnegan explains – through the mouths of multiple characters in case we miss this major point – we are already past the first stage, denial of climate change. We’re also past the time when we can implement the second stage, action. So, what follows is the third stage, hopelessness – and beyond that, something else. Evolution, adaptation, and – illogically but very human – the emergence of new hope.

Director Jason Te Kare does a good job of letting Finnegan’s characters speak for themselves. The actors’ movements are spare, the staging minimalist. For the most part, the actors deal well with the challenge of such quick character switches. Green – consistently a mesmerising stage presence – shows off his skill by mastering a series of accents. Rivera, in his mainstage debut, is a comedic genius while Tito shows off their physical comedy skills. However, one of my favourite characters of the night is one Rivera plays completely straight, that of a scientist who struggles to communicate the subtleties of science interpretation when faced with a live TV interview. Cheong plays a mother in the opening scene, convincingly paralysed by the decision of whether or not to have a child. Dekkers-Reihana is often typecast as an activist, but in this role gets one of the funniest lines of the night – and no I did not take my lentil home. (You had to be there.)

I applaud the decision not to amplify – Rangatira was built as a theatre space. The majority of the dialogue is crystal clear, but some of the actors struggle to make dialogue heard above sound effects, especially when placed far upstage. I’m hoping this is opening night wobbles.

Spatial and lighting designer Jane Hakaraia likewise gives space to the actors, illuminating them precisely in turn for their scenes. She allows herself the occasional stunning set pieces:  torches on the floor forming prison-like bars, turning a character into her own shadow-play in the longest monologue of the piece. I can’t pick up on the vision behind Nati Pereira’s costumes though, and some items, such as bulky cardigans, seem clumsy in use by the actors.

The set (both Hakaraia and Pereira are credited) doesn’t live up to its promise either. On entering the theatre, I was intrigued by the huge rolls of blue vinyl-like flooring covering the stage and suspended all the way up to the ceiling, but apart from being used for a few projections, only two of the rolls get unrolled (only 2 metres at that), and this action doesn’t seem to serve any narrative purpose. But there is so much happening I could have missed something.

It’s up to sound designer Leon Radojkovic to unleash his magic, and he provides a complex and layered score, sourcing everything from recordings of native birds to archival footage. With trademark inventiveness he uses sound from many sources, including a recording of a frog played from a cellphone. He also underscores (pun intended) some of the more emotional moments, such as the gradual fading of birdsong from a familiar valley.

Programme notes suggest that Finnegan substantially rewrote the script for a NZ audience, working with renowned climate scientist and Mātauranga Māori expert Dan Hikuroa. Indeed, the script feels specific to our time and place, referencing ideas of personhood of mountains and rivers that have recently been recognised in NZ law, as well as specific species and climate events in our recent history. I’m going to say it again – Finnegan has a deft touch. Hikuroa’s presence (he also advised creatives and actors) is important but subtle. Being a nerd, I checked in with my (climate scientist) husband about the science in the play after and googled some points for myself. It all checked out.

I left the theatre without a feeling of uplift. Nor did I get what I often crave from theatre, catharsis. But that felt appropriate given the subject matter. After all, climate change conversation shouldn’t be 80 minutes in a theatre. It’s a subject each of us will have to address in our lifetime – and we can’t avoid it. We are all now in the era of climate change. How we respond is individual, changeable, emotive, not necessarily based on evidence. Scenes from the Climate Era succeeds in capturing that capriciousness.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer