By Saoirse Anton

As I sit writing this, the news is playing on the TV on the other side of the room, and from the corner of my eye I can see the now too familiar footage of wildfires, flooding, landslides, and drought. The COP26 Climate Summit is happening in Glasgow at the moment, bringing together representatives of over 200 countries in Glasgow to discuss how they will collectively tackle climate change. This is the 26th such summit, we have seen that footage of climate-based disasters hundreds of times, global temperatures continue to rise, and time is running out. We all need to do what we can, and in all areas of our lives. 

I’m sure you have all experienced the power theatre can have - from lifting a bad mood to building someone’s confidence, to making an audience think about difficult questions. And making audiences think about those questions is one of the ways in which theatre can play its part in saving the environment from our own destructive power. We have all seen the stories on the news, and read all of the facts and figures, but what theatre can do is bring those stories to life in front of us, in a powerfully distilled and immediate experience. When it is an abstracted discussion of degrees of temperature rise, or changing sea levels, it can be too easy to tune out. When we speak on a global scale, it becomes difficult to wrap our heads around what difference we can make, but productions like Luke Casserly and Shan May Breen’s recent work Root, which traces the history of Ireland’s shrinking forests, through to the present and the potential future, or Brokentalkers’ Rising, which brings the sometimes overwhelming topic of rising sea levels into sharp perspective through the eyes of a young Dubliner living by the water, create a gateway into picturing these global crises as an immediate and affecting part of our own lives. 

Theatre fosters empathy, and as Augusto Boal wrote, “empathy is the most powerful weapon.” Empathy and the actions that follow from it are what will make a difference in the face of climate change - if the people running huge rampantly polluting industries can recognise the cost of their profits are the lives of people whose homes are flooded and burned in natural disasters, and can empathise enough to recognise that cost is too high to continue, then change could happen. If the person who is about to take another disposable coffee cup instead of bringing a reusable one can picture the animal who may be directly hurt by ingesting fragments of that coffee cup months later, and understand the implications of even the smallest decisions, then change could happen. 

Alongside this powerful storytelling, change is happening off stage too. As I mentioned briefly in this column a few months ago, many companies, individuals and venues in the Irish theatre industry are making huge efforts to change their practices to make them more environmentally sustainable. Listening in to a panel discussion at the Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival last month, it was heartening to hear the drive for change that was felt by both the panellists and the audience. From small changes to fix leaking taps, to drastic overhauls of touring models, there are myriad ways that the industry can make a difference to its carbon footprint. This goes for audiences too. Consider your trip to the theatre - are you meeting three friends at the theatre and all driving there in separate cars? Perhaps you could coordinate to bring fewer vehicles, or look at public transport options. Do you always travel to bigger venues in cities for your theatre trips? Have a look at what your local venues have on offer. Only print your tickets if you have to, bring a reusable cup for your interval coffee, check if that flyer in your pocket is recyclable and make sure you put it in the right bin when you no longer need it. And if it isn’t recyclable, mention it to the venue or company you got it from and suggest investigating recyclable options for future productions.

Jane Goodall said “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” The theatre industry, and the audiences that support it, are a local and global community, and with solidarity and collective effort, we can do our bit to make a difference we not only want to make, but need to make.