Review: THE END OF WINTER, Noëlle Janaczewska's Contemporary Commentary On Climate Change From A Cold Appreciator Opens At Griffin Theatre

Thursday 3rd February 2022, 7pm, SBW Stables Kings Cross

Part dramatic monologue, part TED Talk, Noëlle Janaczewska's THE END OF WINTER is a moving personal story of one woman's awareness of loss on multiple levels as she contemplates the future of her favourite season. Peppered with historical and scientific facts, personal recollections, and more recent observations, this 55-minute work is thoroughly engaging, entertaining and educational.

The premise of THE END OF WINTER is that the unnamed middle aged Anglo-Saxon woman (Jane Phegan) who had migrated to Australia from England as a child, has had a long held 'Cold Appreciation' in that she prefers cold climates, cold weather and cold seasons. She recounts her observations on the gradual loss of her favourite season and environments in tandem with a more personal loss of her mother back in England with musings she started collating during the summer of 2019/2020 when large portions of Australia were burning during a shockingly hot season. Janaczewska ensures that this work is not merely a political statement that more needs to be done to manage climate change by using historic details to engage the audience into having a similar affection for the cold as the narrator. As stated in the work, much of culture, both historic and contemporary, views cold as a negative and undesired condition but the reinforcement of the perpetual wonder that explorers and adventurers have had with cold climates and the beauty of snow-covered landscapes helps remind the audience that we need the world to have enough cold components. She draws on popular awareness of famous explorers like Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen who beat Scott to 90oSouth by 34 days while reinforcing the quest for the south pole was more than just a Northern European and Australian race.

Directed by Kate Gaul, this work, presented on stage that features a plywood model of a gabled house 'sinking' into the high gloss floor that reflects light like water (Production Design: Soham Apte), is designed with an awareness of the audience as Phegan connects with the audience, while also being told to an unseen listener as the story is told to the rear wall, away from the corner stage audience. The model house draws parallels with the family loss and the loss of icebergs as the house takes on paler tones with Becky Russell's stark white light evoking images of the ice flows as papers are strewn on the floor and the black fabric backdrop echoes the polar ice shelves that loom over the bays around the frozen continent. The house is also used to add variety to how Phegan engages with the set as she climbs over the roofs and sits on the tilted construction. Regardless of your level of awareness of the various cold climates and connections humans have had with the inhospitable cold environments, THE END OF WINTER ensures there is enough information to supplement more common understandings of what modern engagements with the environment is doing to environments that are rapidly changing. The acknowledgement that expedition and eco-tourism and pursuits that engage with nature are actually causing the once remote and isolate areas to become mainstream and damaged was a well-known and understood contradiction by the audience response while other facts were met with the surprise of new awareness that served heighten the audience interest in what other information Janaczewska has unearthed. A refreshing new approach to climate crisis awareness, THE END OF WINTER gives a more personal connection to the cause. For those with an existing fascination with ice and cold, this reviewer has long been interested in the accounts of polar ice exploration, this is a wonderful way to engage with the cause and the conversation by connecting with something different to the mainstream considerations. For those that may have held the view that cold and winter were bad, as weather broadcasters and ancient legends and stories have told us, this reconnects people to the awe and beauty the comes with cold and therefore helps people understand why it needs to be protected so that it will not be relegated to photographs and stories of what once was.

https://griffintheatre.com.au/whats-on/the-end-of-winter/

Photos: Clare Hawley

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