REVIEW: David Finnigan's New Work, SCENES FROM THE CLIMATE ERA Blends History With Probability To Deliver A Glimpse Into An Alternative Way Of Seeing The Future Of Planet

Tuesday 6th June 2023, 6:30pm, Belvoir St Theatre

Director Carissa Licciardello presents David Finnigan’s (Playwright) SCENES FROM THE CLIMATE ERA with a simplicity that allows the series of stories told by five performers to be the focus of the work.  With a history of working with climate researchers from around the globe to inform his artistic endeavors over the past 20 years, Finnigan’s latest piece is educating and alarming while presenting an idea that the world will one day find a new equilibrium.

The premise of SCENES FROM THE CLIMATE ERA hangs on the idea that climate change is not something short lived with a defined limit and knowable measurables to define the end of a “Crisis”, but rather is aligned to the more nebulous idea of an “Era” in which a new normal is found, just maybe a bit ‘shifted’ when compared to the past.  Told through a series of stories delivered by various combinations of the ensemble of Harriet Gordon-Anderson, Abbie-Lee Lewis, Brandon McClelland, Ariadne Sgourgos and Charles Wu, the timeline jumps back and forth as memories of the significant and insignificant moments in Australia’s climate history are recounted from a position sometime in the future.  For events prior to 2023, Finnigan draws on real events to inform his scenes, like references to the 1994 Eastern Seaboard Fires that burned from Bateman’s Bay to the Queensland boarder, the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the 2022 discovery of a house mouse population on the remote South Atlantic Ocean island of Gough Island. For events after 2023, the stories are speculations but given the current state of the world’s climate, they feel like very possible realities. 

Set and Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper keeps the stage relatively clear with a single timber table and eight utilitarian corporate chairs that the cast manipulates to indicate the different spaces over which the story unfolds.  The underlying theory which inspired the proposed definition of the end of the Climate Era is cleverly conveyed as the stage gradually gives way to sand (or what appears to be sand based on the allergy warning in the program).  Ella Butler’s costume design is also simple with the performers dressed casually to convey that they are ‘average’ people recreating scenes from the “past”.

Presented in a tight 80 minutes of theatre, SCENES FROM THE CLIMATE ERA is a though provoking work that seeks to educate and inspire further understanding of the topic.  Finnigan is no stranger to using live performance art to help educate and inform audiences about the environment and their impact on it and this is no different.  For anyone that has an interest in the world in which we live this work holds thought provoking possibility. 

https://belvoir.com.au/productions/scenes-from-the-climate-era/

Photos: Brett Boardman