The following is an excerpt from Brian Kulick’s new guide from Methuen Drama, Staging the End of the World: Theatre in a Time of Climate Crisis.
I Dream of Obsolescence
Of the the handful of books I’ve written, there is part of me that sincerely hopes my new guide, Staging the End of the World; Theatre in a Time of Climate Crisis, will turn out to be fully out of date. Should some wayward reader from the long run come upon it within the bowels of a library, I hope they’ll merely chortle and say, “A book on plays about the end of the world? What a preposterous subject. The world is fine. We have righted our ecological wrongs. All is now well with Planet Earth. We’ve no need for such antiquated apocalyptic hand wringing.”
You see, I desperately need this guide to be completely incorrect, terribly misguided, and subsequently relegated to the dustbin of misbegotten futurologies. And but such a future, based on most of our scientists and climatologists, could be simply across the nook. There is, at this precarious second in our historical past, the very actual risk that—if we don’t reverse our carbon-insistent means of being—there shall be no tomorrow. This would imply no such library, with no such guide, and, most horrifying of all, no such reader to not learn it. An alternate future is inching, daily, nearer and nearer, transferring us from the realm of science fiction to science reality. It is a possible actuality that’s terribly onerous for us to wrap our minds round, and therein lies each the issue and the impetus of this guide. Put merely: How will we, within the theatre, speak about tackling such an infinite problem which faces humankind? How can our artwork type, maybe essentially the most ephemeral of its aesthetic siblings, impress upon audiences the need for motion?
And, conversely: Why is that this so very onerous for our discipline to appear to do? Is this only a failure on theatre’s half? Or does this drawback plague all our sister arts? Does the present local weather disaster, as some are wont to say, render all our aesthetic responses considerably impotent when trying to awaken our audiences to combat for the way forward for our planet? Such a query, inadvertently, provides rise to a different set of equally troubling questions, which begins with the age-old suspicion that artwork basically is just incapable of effecting any actual substantial change on the world stage. Such naysayers insist that the entire thought of artwork as a catalyst for any type of praxis is doomed from the outset. According to them, we would as nicely put down our pens and brushes, decide up a close-by banner, and storm the citadels of local weather denial. While we’re doing so, an older and even perhaps extra pernicious query re-insinuates itself: Is even taking to the streets, or any type of collective motion, able to altering the established order that’s now regulated by the diffuse and but seemingly implacable forces of neoliberal globalism? Are we nonetheless able to collective change in opposition to such an invisible foe? All these questions ship me to a reminiscence:
From the Dark and Backward Abysm of My Youth
This occurred some 40 or so years in the past. I will need to have been a freshman in faculty, and I had gone with a buddy to see the film Gandhi. This, as you might keep in mind, was one of many final of the good Hollywood epics, a la David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. Only Gandhi, contra Lawrence, led to world-historical change with neither weapons nor Arabian stallions; as a substitute, Gandhi deployed a quite simple idea: Satyagraha (nonviolent resistance). It was with this one inconceivable precept that he helped to liberate India from the tyrannous yoke of British colonial rule. One can be hard-pressed to discover a story higher constructed to vary the hearts and minds of its viewers, in addition to garner a couple of little golden statues alongside the way in which; which, truly, it did, profitable quite a few Academy Awards, together with Best Picture and Best Actor for the outstanding Ben Kingsley, in a miraculous break-out efficiency as Gandhi.
We noticed the movie at our favourite cineplex in Century City, famend for its huge projection display screen and labyrinthine underground parking construction. The latter was a grand subterranean affair, a form of architectural cross between a buried Egyptian pyramid and an unlimited, multistoried fallout shelter. I keep in mind leaving the theatre and using down an limitless escalator to the bowels of this parking complicated. It appeared to have as many underground flooring as letters in our English alphabet. On the way in which down, I couldn’t assist however overhear numerous observations from different cinemagoers who, like me, had simply seen Gandhi. They all gave the impression to be in a state of blissful transformation. They spoke in hushed and reverential tones about how “I’ve never been so moved by a film,” “I’ll never be the same, thanks to this picture,” “This movie has changed my life,” “From now on, I want to dedicate myself to the path of Satyagraha.” It was as if I used to be witnessing some extraordinary mass conversion.
This superb expertise lasted simply lengthy sufficient for everybody to get into their respective automobiles and try to go away the underground parking storage; discovering, within the course of, that they had been now unwittingly trapped inside some kind of vehicular type of Dantesque gridlock, a circle of hell that the Italian poet had someway forgotten to say. Car horns started to blare, shouts of street rage might be heard echoing all through the underground corridors, curses ensued, adopted by threats, fender benders, even a fist combat between two enraged motorists. My buddy turned to me and mentioned, “Wow, I guess the message of this movie lasted a whole 10 minutes.”
I take into consideration these 10 minutes lots. Is that the precise shelf lifetime of a piece of political artwork? 600 meager seconds? That’s it? After that, we simply revert to our former, fallen selves? But what did I count on? At the time, I had a sense for what I wished to have occur, however no identify to place to this want. Much later, in my graduate college days, I stumbled upon the phrase I used to be searching for. It was from the traditional Greek and was made up of eight little letters that spelled out:
Metanoia, Which Rhymes With Paranoia, But the Comparison Ends There
Some readers might know this phrase from its relatively consequential look within the New Testament; it’s one of many first phrases uttered by Jesus within the Gospel based on Mark. It is there that the prophet from Galilee publicizes the dominion of God and asks all to affix him in metanoia. For the early Christians, metanoia was considered solely in non secular phrases, as a form of religious conversion representing not solely a change of coronary heart but additionally a repudiation of 1’s present path, a flip towards atonement. The King James Bible makes all this quite simple and easy; the phrase any longer will imply: Repent. End of story.
But not precisely. Currently, metanoia has turn out to be the plaything of such modern philosophers as Armen Avanessian and Anke Hennig. They have reclaimed this phrase’s lexical roots, returning it to its pre-Christian which means. This allows them to higher focus on sure elementary moments of particular person and cultural transformations which perpetually alter the existential core of our considering. In their fingers, metanoia now speaks of the change that may occur to the connection between our minds and the world. Such a formidable form of cultural metanoia happens, based on them, maybe as soon as in a lifetime, and is ready to carry with it sure far-reaching relocations within the considering of human relations, radical/epochal modifications in tradition, and the potential collapse of beforehand prevailing factors of view. It is a considering that modifications our very mind-set. Metanoia, for these philosophers, doesn’t simply result in change, it institutes an entire new actuality. This is what I hoped for as I rode down that escalator after the film Gandhi; that is what I pray for when it comes to our assembly the calls for of our present local weather disaster.
But can we do that within the theatre, the place there’s at all times the authentic concern that our audiences are considerably self-selected? Aren’t they of a sure age? A sure socioeconomic background? Aren’t they mainly liberal-leaning by nature? Aren’t they already predisposed to the message we wish to ship? What about these of a unique age? Background? Political orientation? Or put one other means:
Aren’t We Just Preaching to the Choir?
Yes. To a sure extent we’re, however that’s not such a foul factor and—really—it could be a really needed factor. Why? Well, the transformed can and sometimes do lose religion. They hand over or give in. To what? Usually to one of many following 4 isms: cynicism (“We’re all too selfish to do the work that needs to get done”), pessimism (“It’s just too big a problem and too late to solve”), fatalism (“What difference does it make? It’s all going to end anyway”), or lastly—and maybe most perniciously—indifferentism (“I can’t be bothered with this now, I have other shit I gotta deal with”). On high of this we have now the 2 lethal Ds: denial (“It’s just too much to think about, so I won’t”) and distraction (“Hey, is that the brand-new Xbox One S model with 1 terabyte of internal memory and the ability to play Minecraft, Sea of Thieves, and Forza Horizon 3?”). So, as you’ll be able to see, we have now quite a lot of work to do exactly to ensure our people maintain the religion, don’t stray, and are reminded that they’ll nonetheless make a big distinction. We can do that, nevertheless it requires that we keep on message.
And so our job as artists is to proceed to warn, inform, replace, cajole, encourage, and even inflame our base to remain engaged; in any other case they’ll too simply succumb to the identical fatalism of such writers as Roy Scranton and Jonathan Franzen. These two well-meaning authors shake their heads and inform us, “Game over.” The drawback for them is just too problematic. This—in and of itself—is an issue, particularly in case you are Catriona McKinnon, the environmental thinker who warned us that what’s repeatedly asserted as unimaginable turns into unimaginable. We artists should current the opposite aspect of the story, not solely to the opposite aspect, however to ourselves.
And What About the Climate Deniers? Can They Ever be Won Over?
I actually don’t know. What I do know is that we have now two nice allies on this ongoing marketing campaign to impress the world into saving the planet. Our first and maybe most vital ally is the planet itself. This is a superb companion to have on our aspect. It definitely isn’t shy on the subject of expressing how it’s feeling about our present scenario and has a strong arsenal of persuasive means to make its factors. Things like wildfires, flash floods, limitless droughts, and different freak climate occasions. The pressure of those messages is fairly onerous to disregard, particularly since they turn out to be louder with every passing yr. Surely, in some unspecified time in the future, this can breach the barricades of even essentially the most resolute of local weather deniers. But by the point this occurs, will it’s too late? Will we have now missed our alternative to make the modifications essential to proper our local weather wrongs?
This is why we will’t depart the majority of argument to be made by the planet by itself. The local weather clock is ticking and so we have now to hold an equal share of the proselytizing load. The different ally on this marketing campaign is the youngsters of our opponents who can nonetheless be gained over. The playwright Edward Bond believes that we’re all born right into a state of what he calls radical innocence and we keep this semi-pristine state all through our early childhood. This is the most effective time to attraction to our kids’s innate conscience. This is what Asja Lācis did within the Nineteen Twenties with orphans of the First World War and what Bertolt Brecht did simply earlier than the appearance of the Second World War with the youngsters of the Karl Marx School.
It is what the protest singer Pete Seeger did within the Nineteen Fifties. Do you recognize this story? It is one in all my favourite anecdotes. Seeger, as you might know, was blacklisted within the Nineteen Fifties for his radical leanings. He was banned from taking part in any tv, radio, or reside performances. But the FBI allowed Seeger to do sing-alongs in public elementary colleges throughout the nation. “What harm could that do?” they thought. Well, the reply is an entire lot. Seeger gently radicalized a complete era of kids who got here of age within the Sixties and sang his protest songs at future rallies, marches, sit-ins, and different moments of spontaneous rebellion. So get to these children, and so they would possibly finally be those to show their recalcitrant mother and father a factor or two concerning the fragility of our planet. Again, the local weather clock retains ticking, we don’t have time for them to develop up and do our work for them. But we will at the least give them the moral instruments essential to face a probably compromised tomorrow.
So What You’re Saying Is That It Is Up to Us and a Bunch of Schoolchildren to Combat the Climate Crisis?
No. I’m not so certain issues are as binary as we’re led to suppose. Certainly, there are these of us who’re involved about local weather change and people of us who—for no matter causes—stay unconvinced. But between these two opposing sides sits a 3rd and really vital constituency. These are individuals who have but to type an opinion or who really feel impotent in doing something concerning the present state of affairs. We might not be capable of persuade these on the other finish to this spectrum of concern, however we nonetheless have an excellent probability of reaching these within the heart. This is never completed with one work, however relatively with a physique of labor. History has proven us many examples the place a sustained dedication, typically manifested via the manufacturing of a physique of cultural works and social acts can, over time, create a gradual cultural metanoia needed to assist change the way in which we take a look at issues and from there to altering the issues themselves. Such moments are epochal shifts in our worldview, when the outdated methods of seeing crumble and a brand new imaginative and prescient of actuality emerges. This is troublesome for us to think about within the age of Amazon, the place we have now grown accustomed to pushing a button and having no matter we need arrive at our doorstep inside two days! As a end result, we typically overlook that change, notably world-historical change, doesn’t occur on such an accelerated timetable. At least not on a collective/international degree. Yes, St. Paul can have his personal non-public conversion on the street to Damascus. Such a metanoia might be instantaneous for a person, however do not forget that the worldwide acceptance of Christianity was the results of the lengthy onerous work of a gaggle of deeply devoted believers. It was a mass transformation that was a number of hundred years within the making. In our trendy occasions, even Gandhi’s personal Satyagraha was a lifetime’s work, the fruit of 60-plus years wherein he and his followers endeavored to show that one thing as immense as India’s independence might be achieved via easy acts of nonviolent protest.
The difficult factor is time is operating out for us. We, as artists, must proceed to succeed in, alert, and impress this broad swath of the planet’s undecided. They can have a decisive influence in exerting extra stress on our governments and companies to make good on their guarantees to actually fight international warming. And then? Well then, I’m with David Graeber (Direct Action and The Democracy Project), Cornelius Castoriadis (Society Adrift), and Srecko Horvat (Poetry From the Future): Think international however begin native. Take our decreased carbon footprint into the streets. Start marching and cease shopping for. But how will we get these people to march in keeping with us? My reply is considerably easy and easy:
Tell Stories
I imply, that’s our job, proper? That’s one of many causes you’re studying this guide: to search out tales that may assist inform, encourage, or unnerve us into motion. I imagine that the story stays one in all humankind’s best innovations, proper up there with fireplace and the wheel. Storytelling is made all of the extra superb and impactful when it occurs amongst different people. It is as if every physique has the power to not solely soak up the story however someway amplify its potential significance. This places me in thoughts of what George Marshall mentioned in his incisive Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. Toward the tip of this guide he provides an inventory of issues we will do to make a distinction. One of those is to “TELL STORIES. Stories remain the best way to engage and sway people.”
Why? I suppose we may go down the rabbit gap of neurobiology to attempt to perceive what makes our brains reply to tales, however I’d relatively let you know a narrative about why tales are so efficient. This is a real story the place I’m a peripheral character. These days I’m the chair of a theatre program, and because the chair of a theatre program you find yourself listening to quite a lot of graduation speeches. One of the issues I’ve found is that irrespective of how nicely intentioned these graduation speeches are, most are fairly lethal. They are often stuffed with a rhetorical gumbo of recommendation, platitudes, bromides, factoids, statistics, warnings, half-baked jokes, and barely off-putting “let me tell you”s. About mid-way via such speeches you end up inevitably zoning out. This is true irrespective of how relevant the platitude, humorous the joke, or dire the warning. At a sure level the phrases of the speaker turn out to be white noise, and one’s non-public ideas regain the higher hand within the battle for our ongoing consideration. As a end result I can’t let you know a rattling factor about a lot of the speeches I’ve heard over the previous few years.
The solely speech I can keep in mind is the one the place the speaker determined to inform a narrative. Suddenly I discovered myself completely engaged with each phrase the speaker uttered. I turned to the individuals on my left and proper and found that they too had been equally engrossed within the speaker’s story. It was a narrative a couple of life lesson he discovered in his youth. Suddenly we had been fully gained over by the depiction of our speaker as a younger baby. Midway via the story, two potential outcomes appeared on the narrative horizon: One constructive, one adverse. Which can be the story’s finish? The reply remained up for grabs and the strain within the auditorium was palpable, we had been all leaning ahead, hoping for the most effective, dreading the worst. In quick: We had been fully spellbound.
This, to me, is the ability of tales: They can interact you, change you, stick with you, and information you for the remainder of your life. When you cease to consider it, this propensity to make and obtain tales is nothing wanting miraculous; however as a result of sheer ubiquity of our ever multiplying tales, we will simply overlook their precise originality and necessity, at the same time as they continue to be profound brokers of change. Science and details are persuasive, however when woven into the narrative material of a narrative, such because the opening chapter of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, they’ve the potential to rework the route of a complete nation. So are all of us making tales within the hopes of arriving on the local weather change equal of Carson’s Silent Spring? Sure, if that had been to occur that will be superb, however each story on this problem counts, and it’s in the end the cumulative impact of all these tales that may do the trick and win over extra of these people from the middle that we talked about.
This is what thinker Cornelius Castoriadis means by impacting our social imaginary. It is modified story by story, and if we “stay on story” we have now the chance to attain a second of historic metanoia. This is the place our collective storytelling needs to be main us. We want to search out and invent tales that take care of this present disaster of ours. We must share these tales in every single place we will: on our levels, tv units, film screens, in our books and journals, via the web, and on the water cooler. We want to inform tales concerning the finish of our world and these tales must encourage, incite, and console us.
This final want, for comfort, is very needed nowadays. There are so many people who’re at a loss, trying to find solutions, like little Vodya in Tony Kushner’s Slavs! For those that might not know this outstanding play, it offers with the ultimate days of the Soviet Union, and one of many characters that we meet alongside the way in which is a mute 8-year-old woman whose silence is because of a chromosomal alteration from her mother and father’ publicity to the ionizing radiation from Chernobyl. Toward the tip of the play, little Vodya arrives within the Soviet sector of heaven (that is, in any case, a play written by Tony Kushner), the place she meets a gaggle of aged high-ranking Russian dignitaries who’ve died however proceed their dialectical debates within the nice past. Her look interrupts their every day polemics. Having discovered her voice, she speaks the next line: “I am inexpressibly sad, grandfathers. Tell me a story.” Surely one in all these historic shades has a story to inform that may assist little Vodya together with her grief. She appears from one to the subsequent till her eyes fall upon Upgobkin. He confesses, “I have only one story, but I can say only that it happened, and not what it means.”
Little Vodya doesn’t but perceive that these are certainly the most effective form of tales; hungry for any phrases of consolation, she climbs onto his lap to listen to his story. It is about younger Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who will develop up someday to turn out to be the good Lenin; however, on this story, he’s nonetheless a mere boy, solely 17 years of age. We discover him mourning the loss of life of his beloved brother. In an try to remedy his emotions of loss, he decides to learn his elder sibling’s favourite guide, a novel by the Russian creator Chernyshevsky, whose guide posed
Ugobkin The immortal query which Lenin requested and in asking stood the world on its head; the query which challenges us to each contemplation and, if we love the world, to motion; the query which means: Something is extremely incorrect with the world, and avers: Human beings can change it; the query requested by the dwelling and, apparently, by the fretful useless as nicely: What is to be completed?
Vodya (After slightly pause) What is to be completed?
Prelapsarianov Yes. What is to be completed?3
This returns us to Zygmunt Bauman’s commentary: “When I was young, we argued over what needed to be done. Today, the main question is who would be able to do it.” The reply from such thinkers as Cornelius Castoriadis, David Graeber, and Srecko Horvat is an emphatic: us. We do that with the tales we inform, the actions we take, the leaders we turn out to be, the actions we manage, the cynicism we fight, the hopes we engender, and the visions we flip into actuality. It is on all this that our future relies upon. It all begins with the suitable story. Find it. Share it. Spread it. And begin altering the world.
Brian Kulick (he/him) is the chair of Columbia University’s School of the Arts Theatre Program, the place he additionally teaches directing with Anne Bogart. In addition to staging the works of Shakespeare, Brecht, and Tony Kushner, he has been the creative director of Classic Stage Company and an inventive affiliate for the Public Theater. He is the creator of Staging Shakespeare, How Greek Tragedy Works, The Elements of Theatrical Expression, and The Secret Life of Theatre.