INTERVIEW: New play finds climate scientists trying to save planet Earth
Photo: Image courtesy of the artist / Provided by Kampfire PR with permission.
Climate change has been on the mind of writer-director Karen Malpede for quite some time. The expansive topic inspired her 2014 play, Extreme Whether, and it’s also the subject of her latest work, Other Than We, which plays through Dec. 1 at The Downstairs at La MaMa on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
In the show, dubbed a cli-fable with music, four scientists risk their lives to create new life on Earth. The narrative is a thoughtful and metaphorical response to the current climate crisis.
“I wrote a play in 2014 called Extreme Whether, which was the story of climate scientists,” Malpede said in a recent phone interview. “It was a family drama, but it was a story of climate scientists being attacked by climate deniers working for the fossil fuel industry, which is what, of course, has happened and is continuing to happen even more so with the current president. And as I was researching the climate science, the gravity of it struck me and also the heroics of scientists thinking that they were simply sharing the results of their research and being met with death threats and all kinds of conspiracy theories, being told they were working only for money and really undermined at every step of the way.”
Extreme Whether led Malpede to the next step in her life, which was teaching both theater and issues of environmental justice on the college level. This immersion into issues of climate change inspired her to craft Other Than We, which is presented by both La MaMa and Theatre Three Collaborative.
“So I began to think about what’s the next play that addresses this situation that we’re all in whether we consciously know it or unconsciously know it, which is that the Earth is being attacked in every way possible, not just by rising temperatures but by deforestation and species habitat loss,” she said. “We’re in the midst of a sixth extinction, etc. I also became fascinated not by doom and gloom, but by what’s the answers to this. What can we do now? That is a consciousness change, and that’s what the play is about. It’s set in the future. It’s a fable, but it is about a consciousness change that would put us in touch again with our heads and our hearts and with the natural world that we live in. If we can do that, we have a fighting chance of surviving and helping to re-wild the earth.”
In Other Than We, there are four characters. One of them is played by Malpede’s longtime colleague and partner George Bartenieff, an Obie and Drama Desk award winner who appeared on Broadway in The Merchant of Venice.
“I always write for my colleague and partner George Bartenieff, who is a very great actor and who is an elder,” the playwright said. “He’s 86. He’s had a 72-year career in the theater, so his character, who is a linguist and a revolutionary, was inspired by our mutual friend, Noam Chomsky. And then the younger characters in the play, one is his granddaughter who is a neuroscientist named Eve. Her lover is an obstetrician gynecologist named Michelle, and Tanaka is a climate refugee who was a physician in his country of origin and is now working as a janitor in the dome where they’re all living. They’ve all been taken in to the dome.”
Although climate change theater might suggest that Other Than We is a form of activist drama, Malpede doesn’t think about what people should do after experiencing her words. She is more interested in consciousness change, much like what happens to the characters at the center of the plot.
“It’s really a play about people remembering their connection to themselves and to the Earth,” she said. “The statement that’s made in the play is that we have to connect our heads to our hearts. If we just feel, we become sentimental or stupid, which is a lot of theater, and if we just think, we become boring and disconnected. So the real way to live on Earth is with your head and heart connected. … So that’s what I hope the play will encourage.”
Other Than We represents Malpede’s 20th play, and the last 10 have been stories she has also directed. In the late 1980s, her friends were pushing her to think about directing her own work, and once she made that decision, she never looked back.
“It was actors telling me over a course of time that I should be directing, and my feeling is that my work is unusual always,” Malpede said. “Each play is its own world. Each play comes out of a lot of thinking and research and just finds a form that suits that play, and I know my work so much better than anyone else. I work very closely with George Bartenieff, my co-collaborator, and he was one of the people who urged me to start directing back in 1987 when we met. But he wasn’t the only one. Actors since my very first play have said that to me.”
She added: “This play is very close to me. I’m very excited about it. … It’s unusual. It’s oddly hopeful, and it’s many layered and I think quite interesting.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Other Than We, written and directed by Karen Malpede, plays through Dec. 1 at The Downstairs at La MaMa on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
