This Play will Solve Climate Change – review
Review by Andreea Helen David
This play will Solve Climate Change has an ambitious title but I believe, were we to listen to what its said in the show, this play could truly solve climate change!
I often let theatre move me, but it is rare that it manages to move me like this show has. I am not sure how much of it is due to the brilliant acting and how much is activism.
The show starts with the actresses, amongst which two children, sharing their hopes and dreams for thefuture 11 years. Then a string of very familiar situations follow, showing us that they are just like us: they enjoy the unexpected warm days, travel by airplane to see family, deny the urgency of taking actions to solve climate change. We’re in it …all of us, and this is one of the reasons I loved this show so much. Laura Baggaley, the director, made the audience a very important part of the show through clever and insightful tricks, like getting us to write the first 5 words that pop into our heads to do with climate change, which were later read out loud by the actors : urgency, famine, Greta, love, fight. Then we got to participate to the Climate Quiz, hosted by the delightful Anca Nana Vaida. The quiz, although presented in a entertaining manner, makes you take stock of your knowledge about the crisis we’re going through and as one of the characters played by Siobhan Spooner, so movingly says they’re preoccupied by Brexit when all they should be thinking about is the climate crisis.
All 4 actresses, Rosanna Preston , Siobahn Spooner, Ceci Stassi and Anca Vaida perform effortlessly, you could never tell they’re actually acting. With their stories and their characters intertwined, they are clearly affected by what’s being said. This is not a play about a dystopian future. It is a play about our present. And our future too, as we seee Freya Caines ( 11) and Mina Caines ( 7) with placards while our hearts breaks.
This play will solve climate change if we listen to them, if we inform ourselves with the materials and guides Reusable Theatre puts at our disposal at the end of the show and if we act upon it. Of course the show should reach the people who have power too, it should be shared, it should be played over and over again.
I cried both times I watched, and I am crying as I am writing this. This is a play that’s done it’s job: Inform and transform.