Q: I’m in a local theatre group and was curious about what the response to the climate crisis has been in theatre and the performing arts and if you have ideas for how we can be more climate conscious in our productions.
A: To answer your question, I had a lovely chat with Catríona Fallon, co-founder of the Green Arts Initiative in Ireland and a sustainable energy mentor for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), who has been working in the arts sphere for over thirty years. We talked about both the creative content of theatre, so, what’s being put on the stage, and the production, or how theatres and performing arts are taking up greener practices.
When it comes to the plays you see or, in your case, put on, integrating themes to do with climate can be tricky. Many have tried and some have succeeded, but it’s proven difficult.
“It’s one thing to make a visual arts project about climate, another to make a performing arts play about it,” Fallon says. “I can understand why theatres are not leaping to do it.” There is a sense with artists, she adds, that they shouldn’t be expected to write on a particular topic, as “you don’t want to weaponise them or use them as a means for communicating a message.”
There have been innumerable visual arts projects, and even dance, making work that addresses the climate crisis, in particular focusing on biodiversity loss. But visual arts can be more straightforward. With theatre, the message is often subtle, and so more difficult to hear, or the play is directed at an audience that is already seeking out climate stories. There have been some successes, Fallon notes, for example, ‘Afloat’, from Sunday’s Child Theatre Company, or Malaprop Theatre’s ‘Hothouse’, a “quirky, black comedy musical. It was really excellent, so it can be done.”
Fallon is also not convinced that plays about our climate is what theatre-goers are looking for. “For many people, when they go to a play they either want a laugh, they want to know what they’re going to see, or they want to see the old Irish favourites,” she says. “So creating performances on the theme of climate change is definitely challenging.”
But what theatre and performing arts venues can do, which is just as crucial, is produce works in a climate-friendly way.
There has long been an active minority interested in their environmental impact, Fallon says, but more recently, and to level the playing field, the Arts Council has made submitting a Climate Action Policy and Plan a condition of funding for many organisations. Support in the form of training, upskilling, and mentoring has been given to these organisations, something Fallon has been involved in.
Steps like these have helped, she says, but, “as is the case with the broader population, people have the ambition and desire, and putting it into practice is another story.” There is a danger that some arts organisations see the climate policy as yet another compliance issue, relegated to that area of their website, so it’s “not integral to the organisation,” she says.
A CARBON BUDGET
“Finding someone holistically looking at the whole spectrum is rare, but there is a growing group doing good work,” she adds, including the West Cork Music Festival, which has been looking at travel for their artists for a long time, and the Pan Pan theatre group are good, as are venues, including The Theatre Royal in Waterford, VISUAL Carlow, The Pavilion in Dun Laoghaire, and The Glucksman gallery in Cork, which is “very tuned in,” she adds.
For festivals, the major focus, though not the only one, tends to be waste, but travel is the bigger problem.
“People tend to get obsessed with waste because it’s visible, but if you look at emissions, emissions from waste are much lower than from energy use and transport,” especially festivals that fly in international performers.
In all cases, to get a greener performance, what’s required is advanced planning and making sure everyone is involved every step of the way, including for smaller theatres like yours.
“In order to reduce your impact, you need to add in extra planning time,” Fallon explains, looking to production, set design, costumes, lighting, and considering your carbon footprint from the start – “not halfway through the process, that’s too late.” In a last-minute panic, you might look to Amazon or Penneys for cheap costumes when, with some foresight, you could have used your own or second-hand pieces. You might even consider drawing up a carbon budget early on, which will help.
“If you can bring in everyone who is going to be involved at the very beginning, and you can bring in that mindset, you will be tuned in together and will agree, and you’ll have as limited an impact on the environment as possible,” from the director to the set designer, the person working the box office, and the actors.
As travel is the biggest eco-concern, for your local productions, you could also encourage people to carpool to the performance or check in advance with the local bus link about the possibility of a shuttle bus to and from the venue. You could also consider changing the start time to accommodate those coming by public transport.
On the night of the show, you have the stage, so Fallon suggests, for a moment before curtain, letting the audience know you’ve made a big effort to keep the production as green as possible, perhaps creating a couple of flyers explaining what you’ve done.
All of this of course requires effort. A few years ago, Fallon was involved in the Dingle Food Festival, where there was a presentation and food for 70 people. Because they planned in advance, they had food from local growers and producers and borrowed cups and plates from a local potter. People took home the leftovers, the pottery was returned, and “we had half a black sack of rubbish at the end. It was a lot of work but people remember it.”
Many of the steps you can take are “totally commonsensical,” Fallon adds, and can be done with good humour and some fun. “It’s about planning and involving everybody,” all for a greener evening at the theatre.
