Review Roundup: DEEP HISTORY at the Public Theater

The Public Theater just celebrated opening night for the North American premiere of DEEP HISTORY, a solo show by Australian playwright and performer David Finnigan.

 An urgent and personal retelling of how we've reached the brink of unthinkable climate disaster, DEEP HISTORY comes to New York following acclaimed runs at Edinburgh Fringe, London's Barbican Centre, and Canberra Theatre Centre.

Check out what the critics are saying about the new play!

Jackson McHenry, Vulture: The structural gambit lends short, cheap pieces like Deep History, which runs to 70 minutes, a level of expansiveness they might not be able to achieve otherwise and sends you out the door with a grabby level of surprise and some tantalizing open questions. (And, in this case, a needle drop.) But then you think, How about we examine those open questions? a?oeSo how can we reconcile clear-headedness with an appropriate sense of immediacy?a?? a?oeIf baseline survival at all costs isna??t the right metric, what is?a?? Art need not have the answers here, but youa??d like Finnigan to spend a little more time in the process of synthesis, spelunking around in the dark pondering what they might be.

Kyle Turner, New York Theatre Guide: Early in David Finnigana??s autobiographical narrative Deep History, he recalls how his career path diverged from his family's: Finnigan's father is a climate scientist, and their shared care for the environment propelled Finnigan to make theatre about environmentalism. He says, a?oeArt can change peoplea??s minds in a way that science sometimes cana??t.a?? A viable claim and certainly a noble pursuit. But Deep History is closer to a TED Talk than theatrical art.

Howard Miller, Talkin' Broadway: There is not a lot of traditional theatricality to Deep History. Finnigan relies on his skills as a storyteller as he jumps between the far distant past and current times. The only "visual aids" are some projections from his laptop computer and a length of brown paper on which he highlights his points. This may not be a must-see work for anyone seeking a typical dramatic presentation, but the reality is plenty dramatic for anyone interested in the geologic scale of climate change, and in gaining a different perspective on what the future may hold for us,

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: Running parallel to Finnigana??s explication of thousands of years of human history is a moment-by-moment account of out-of-control fires in 2019 surrounding his hometown of Canberra that threatened his best friend and his family. This didna??t really achieve the tension and suspense that it was clearly meant to inject into a?oeDeep History.a?? But it did not need to; members of the audience already have tension aplenty from the current news reports full of climate emergencies.