To what lengths will one go to address the global climate crisis?
That is the question at the heart of a dramatic and compelling story.
Patrick Livesey, who created and performs the work, directed by Benjamin Nichol, is a troubled soul who goes to extreme lengths to show his commitment to the cause.
I hope this means something interweaves their character’s personal history with the burning of fossil fuel and global warming.
It takes them from the Coorong town of Meningie in South Australia to Melbourne, where this communications graduate finds meaningful work.
Intent on contributing to the world, they lean into their job as a digital storyteller for a government funded organisation involved in climate research.
Photos by Jack Dixon-Gunn
In fact, it becomes their cause célèbre.
Their YouTube videos appear to be resonating.
They all but work around the clock, but it appears very few care as much as they do.
Their intensity and obsession (read into this their radicalisation) becomes a problem though for their superiors.
Nevertheless, the more this character sees, reads and experiences, the more concerned they are that not enough is being done quickly enough.
Like a handful before them, this activist plans to make a statement so the world cannot afford to look away or turn its back any longer.
Before this is over, we – the audience – come to understand just where this individual’s precarious mental state derived.
Theirs is a fragile and driven mind, in which there are no half measures.
So it is that they can’t fathom why their superiors are tackling the issue so nonchalantly. More than once, this central player is asked to back off and soften their language.
Their horror and frustration are only heightened when they travel with their boss to Kiribati, being their first overseas trip.
I hope this means something traverses a world where the boundaries between the sane and insane, fact and fiction, disintegrate.
I am here to tell you what we see it mighty powerful and confronting. The potency of the piece shouldn’t be dismissed, for it hits a raw nerve.
Patrick Livesey is a superb writer and performer, who is forever giving of themselves and so it is here. I am in awe of their turn of phrase and stagecraft.
What stands out is how real this all feels. You dare not look away, such is the impact of what unfolds.
The backdrop to the work is stunning too, a magnificent garden and greenhouse setting from set and costume designer M*ck McKeague.
It is a nod to where the central character originated.
Also evocative is the striking, colourful video design by Aron Murray, shapes resembling delicate foliage.
To complete the picture is the lighting design by Natalia Velasco Moreno and the naturalistic sound design and composition by Gary Watling.
Seventy minutes without interval, I hope this means something is a transfixing work in which best intentions and vulnerability are laid bare.
It is playing at Chapel Off Chapel until 13th October, 2024.
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