Stage flight? Photograph: Getty Images
There's a book about Robert Lepage called Connecting Flights. The title is a reference to the Canadian theatre director's trek through a million airport lounges on his artistic search for coincidence and symmetry. Today, as it was when Remy Charest's book was published ten years ago, the title is fairly uncontroversial. But how long before Connecting Flights sounds as outrageous as collecting golliwogs or baiting bears?
If we acknowledge that the air industry is a significant contributor to global warming and that global warming is a bad thing, must we start arguing that the very idea of a Robert Lepage production is unacceptable? Should there be boycotts of the world premiere in Newcastle this month of Lipsync which, like most Lepage shows, involves an international collaboration of actors, technicians and producers and scores of connecting flights, before a costly global tour?
It was this kind of question that prompted me to write my recent Guardian article about theatre and the environment. The questions applied to me as much as the industry. As a journalist, I have travelled to see the work of Lepage, for example, in Montreal, Lisbon, Toronto and Copenhagen. I have interviewed him in Quebec City and bumped into him in Las Vegas. That's quite a checklist on its own before I begin to think of the air miles I've burnt up in search of other directors' work.
Living where I do, the Edinburgh International Festival is at the centre of my social and professional calendar. As a freelance writer, I make most money in the run-up to the August event. That makes me complicit in a festival that would be impossible to imagine without large numbers of artists flying around the world. It would also be impossible to sustain if audiences didn't do the same, bringing their tourist dollars with them.
Can I reconcile my belief that the Edinburgh Festival is a good thing with my belief that it damages a fragile environment? Does the pleasure, stimulation and cultural nourishment it brings outweigh all the unwelcome side-effects? Is it better to know that theatre companies are doing what they can to minimise waste (which genuinely seems to be the case) than to pull the curtains down on the whole industry?
When I interviewed Graham Eatough of Glasgow's Suspect Culture, he made a good case for moderation, arguing that cutting back on polluting behaviour was a more realistic goal than cutting it out altogether. "I worry about how viable it is to argue that the only way to deal with these problems is to reduce activities that can be creative, positive and fulfilling," he said. "That seems to me slightly regressive. That isn't to say we can let things continue to run out of control, but there's a danger in adopting a puritanical stance. A more effective personal solution is to do with a balance. For me it's not about saying I'll never fly again. Suspect Culture is doing some work abroad this year, so there'll be more air travel and we'll have to look at what we can do to balance it out elsewhere."
Is that enough? It suits me personally to think it is. But when the water levels rise will we care whether the polluting plane journeys that imbalanced the planet were taken by frivolous holidaymakers or artistic geniuses?
