“… Urgent Theatre … the key to tackling climate change” – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

The climate movement once again delivering us from the hope that the world has reached peak insanity.

Could a new wave of urgent theatre hold the key to tackling climate change?

Kate Wyver Thu 8 May 2025 17.00 AEST

From a New Forest giant inspiring an asthmatic teen to a herd of animal puppets walking to the Arctic Circle, theatre far and wide is taking action – but with energy and optimism, rather than doom-laden tales

Climate stories are typically defined by despair. The future we are told of is such a tragic, barren dystopia, it’s hard to look at head-on. But a flood of theatre-makers are writing their way past fear into something more useful, inspiring action through love, music, puppetry and folklore. “The ones who profit most from the idea that we’re doomed are the oil companies and the people massively polluting our planet,” reasons playwright Flora Wilson Brown. “If we allow ourselves to think there’s nothing we can do, we won’t do anything. There’s still time to act.”

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These plays seek to take what often feels invisible and lay it out for an audience to see more clearly. Abroad, a stampede of animals are confronting this challenge on even larger stages. In 2021, a 12ft-tall puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian girl, called Little Amal, walked 8,000km (5,000 miles) from Turkey to the UK to raise awareness of the urgent plight of refugees. This summer, the same team began a 20,000km (12,400 mile) journey, shepherding The Herds, a group of lifesize animal puppets, from the Congo basin to the Arctic Circle. “The people who depend on the forest are feeling the climate crisis now,” says David Lan, one of the core team and former artistic director of the Young Vic. “Animals are already moving from their ancient habitat because the Earth is too hot. We wanted to dramatise this to express the way life is already being strongly affected by what’s happening to the climate.”

The project leapfrogs people’s resistance to admit that the climate emergency is already making our home uninhabitable by placing it in front of them, in public spaces. …

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/may/08/the-beautiful-future-is-coming-hot-mess-bringing-the-outside-in-the-herds

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m thinking a society which can afford to support a group of committed artists walking a giant herd of puppets on a 5000 mile journey probably isn’t down to its last rice cracker.

Real crisis involve food riots and people dropping dead in the streets. Fake crisis apparently require herds of puppets.

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