Ambivalence and contradictions abound in Chris Bush’s stunning new play, given its premiere in Germany under the title Kein Weltuntergang. It both is and isn’t about the end of the world. Tautly directed by Katie Mitchell, its verbal exchanges are rewound and replayed, with a single dramatic scene branching into numerous possible permutations.
Anna (Alina Vimbai Strähler) is being interviewed by leading climate change academic Uta (Jule Böwe) for a position on the professor’s research team. Anna arrives prompt and composed. Or Anna stumbles in, a little late. Anna travelled there by bike. Or Anna got a taxi. The professor is dismissive of Anna’s research on pink snow. Or the professor is intrigued by Anna’s research on pink snow.
Occupying the stage alongside this academic multiverse is Lena (Veronika Bachfischer), standing among flowers, delivering a eulogy for her mother that at times feels as if it is also for all of us.
Like the recent music-theatre work Houses Slide, directed by Mitchell in London this summer, the performance takes place off-grid. The power for Donato Wharton’s sound design and Anthony Doran’s lighting is generated by three cyclists, taking turns on two bicycles that flank the stage. Chloe Lamford’s design utilises material, costumes and props from previous productions at the Schaubühne. Theatrically and geologically, history seems to have led us to this moment.
Perhaps less of a play and more of a fearless eschatological theatre game, Bush’s remarkable text melds a ruthless structural concept with exquisite lyricism, exploring the tensions, contradictions and hypocrisies that characterise our understanding of this ecological moment and of our individual complicity within it. What are the sacrifices that we have made, knowing what we do? At its core, it is an exploration of agency in both personal and global spheres. Multiverses and the playing out of alternative possibilities are “quantum comfort blankets”, and Bush leads us back to the actuality of our singular existence where choices, inevitably, will have to be made.
This might be the most persuasive theatrical exploration of the climate crisis I’ve seen. Both genuinely terrifying and even daring to be hopeful in the end times, it contains a richness of ideas that is rare, navigated with staggering deftness. It’s an extraordinary stage work.
At the Schaubühne, Berlin, until 29 September with English surtitles available on 11 and 29 September.
