Review: KYOTO, @sohoplace
The success of the RSC-fuelled climate change drama transfers to London.
After a stellar run in Stratford-upon-Avon, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s RSC-fuelled project takes hold of London. Flashback to 1997, the United Nations are desperately trying to draft up an arrangement that might save the Earth. The deadlock on global warming hadn’t eased for years: each representative cautious about their involvement and an American lawyer deep in the pockets of his country’s oil tycoons doing anything to stall. Can the world come together to protect itself?
The history of the Kyoto Protocol becomes an educational, alarming, politically urgent production. Co-directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, Kyoto is the only play you need to see right now, mandatory viewing for a society on the brink of collapse and a planet that's burning down on livestream.
Don Pearlman, a hotshot attorney loyal to Regan with a knack for public service, is accosted by the “Seven Sisters” (the biggest oil companies in the world) in order to defend their affairs in the (allegedly) new discussions surrounding climate change. Portrayed by Stephen Kunken, he's a dog with a bone. He's the perfect real-life villain spun into our story anti-hero, quite literally, the devil’s advocate. But the master puppeteer is a puppet himself and, as he pushes his employers’ agenda through the representatives in a series of moves that actively derail the negotiations, he unveils all the hypocrisy, contradiction, and plain counter-productivity that led to the delays in signing the Protocol.
He leads the action directly in a meta-semi-immersive-no-fourth-wall-to-be-found twist in direction characterised by the brazen arrogance of an unlikeable man with questionable morals. An astonishing company follows, spearheaded by Jorge Bosch in a role whose comic slant reveals a bountiful depth of empathy. His Raúl Estrada-Oyuela, Argentinian ambassador, is a people's person who's unafraid to force a few hands and reach an agreement. He stands as a beacon of light and reason among corruption in a masterfully eclectic performance. Another highlight in a cast so impressively cohesive comes as Andrea Gatchalian (Kiribati), who, much like the government she represents, is a small but mighty presence on the scene.
Daldry and Martin toy with the pressure of the events, tightening and untightening their tourniquet until the very end, but Murphy and Robertson don’t catastrophise the effects of the climate emergency. They opt to accentuate the reasons why we are so late in stepping up, pulling the focus away from citizen-led campaigns and pushing it onto the capitalist nations who delayed proceedings for over three decades.
The facts and figures are embroidered into a beckoning, snappy dialogue, naturalistic and throbbing with energy. Once you set aside the psychological warfare employed to put off the Protocol, the play is all about language and its politics, its power, and the hierarchy of semantics. It’s momentous and relentless in its rhythm, diametrically opposed to the snail-like pace of diplomacy - a mahoosive oxymoron. There’s palpable heat in the tension of seeing Perlman purposefully trying to sabotage the intervention.
The directors manifest the influence of wording a document right in Miriam Buether’s exceptional design. Walking into the auditorium feels like entering a conference centre (you’re also given a lanyard at the door); a giant round table made of wood and green carpet is the stage; audience as well as actors sit around it, engaging with the performers standing on it. Screens all around the room often contextualise what’s happening, mirroring the battle of punctuation and adjectives that’s unfolding under them. It’s simply thrilling, the scientific conversations and economic debates ultimately whittling down to the semiotics of a document very few delegates agree with.
Kyoto is an essential piece of writing that shows us where the priorities of our leaders have been and reminds us where they should be instead. It’s an incomparably gripping drama that will have you on the edge of your seat, complete with a script of inarguable allure and a direction that rivals its best on-screen comparisons. It’s hypnotic, precisely political, and absolutely vital, but also incredibly entertaining with plenty of humorous spots.
Definitely one you can’t miss.
Kyoto runs at @sohoplace until 3 May
Photo Credits: Manuel Harlan
