At the end of 2019, in the English countryside, Australian playwright David Finnigan began writing a play about the six turning points that have brought us to this moment in time—our ecosystems transformed, our planet on the brink of unthinkable climate disaster. But then Finnigan's hometown of Canberra was hit by bushfires. As an area the size of England burned and one billion animals perished, he started to receive texts from loved ones racing to evacuate amid the devastation.
In a performance that interweaves 75,000 years of humanity with the incredibly personal account of his best friend’s escape, Finnigan calls on scientific research, phone footage, and a very personal story to illuminate the transforming planet and how we’ve arrived here. An extraordinary ride through human history, DEEP HISTORY is shot through with humor and glowing with hope.
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,
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? “So how can we reconcile clear-headedness with an appropriate sense of immediacy?” “If baseline survival at all costs isn’t the right metric, what is?” Art need not have the answers here, but you’d like Finnigan to spend a little more time in the process of synthesis, spelunking around in the dark pondering what they might be.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
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