Spring is in the air, and with it come fresh inspirations for pursuing social change. Two upcoming theater productions will harness the power of performance in the name of political activism, geared toward advocating for a greener planet: “Now Is Still Here,” to be staged at the Somerville Community Growing Center on May 29 through 31, and a trio of works from Evan Duffy-Ledbetter from 4 to 5 p.m. Friday at Harvard University’s Askwith Lecture Hall.
“I saw these plays as a kind of icebreaker,” said “Now Is Still Here” director Tom King. “People have a really hard time talking about climate change. To really bring people together, start the conversations, recreate a common sense of community that’s been lost – that was the initial inspiration.”
King is working with Artists’ Theater of Boston to produce a festival of 13 short plays that showcase the voices of playwrights from around the world. He has called “Now Is Still Here” a project that’s something of local edition of Climate Change Theatre Action, an international festival of climate-crisis based works curated by Chantal Bilodeau.
King selected pieces that Bilodeau presented to him. He envisioned them performed with seven actors in the outdoor Somerville Community Growing Center, creating a multisensory experience for audience members sitting on blankets or folding chairs on the lawn. The plays are all woven together by a common theme, focused on care for the human and natural world, beauty, inclusivity and possibility.
“The first act is the present, as informed by the past. This is a collection of plays that look at where we are now and are about the climate … emotions of grief, rage and the sense of hopelessness we feel,” King said. “The second act is the possible future that we could create now, the future as made possible by our choices. It gives us a number of scenarios and allows us to think about what scenario we would want to choose.”
King added, “That resonates with the theme of the Growing Center too. What kind of Somerville do we want, and how do we go about creating the future Somerville?”
Highlights from the evening and afternoon gatherings include “Cassandra Drowning,” written by Nathan Joe. The play melds the stories of the mythic prophet Cassandra, who spoke the truth but couldn’t be believed, and Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” in which the character Nora is ignored by her husband and must decide to leave “the domestic space which she’s confined to.” In Joe’s five-minute work, a woman takes action after her partner dismisses her premonition of impending environmental destruction.
Other works, such as “Mother” by Bilodeau, show an ageless woman lamenting separation from a grown-up child, telling the tale of Mother Earth feeling the loss of connection toward the human species. In “A Letter From the Ocean,” Caridad Svich imagines a postapocalyptic world where renewal is possible, with humanity rebuilding itself by working in the garden and recreating poetry and art.
Evan Duffy-Ledbetter is spearheading the theater project “The Ones Who Lead Change” through the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He will host a reading of scenes from three plays he wrote, inspired by recent Massachusetts policy initiatives related to education and the environment. The audience will be invited to participate in the performances and feedback forums.
The first work, “As I Panic,” is set in a dystopian realm, the second, “Omelas,” in a utopian realm and the third, “Jungle Wars,” spins a narrative about animals in the natural world.
Duffy-Ledbetter was inspired by Brazilian educator and Marxist philosopher Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” as well as Brazilian theater actioner Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed.” Boal’s techniques were a particular source of inspiration, encouraging social change by turning spectators into active creatives.
“We’re pushing how comfortable people feel when they’re experiencing live performance,” said Duffy-Ledbetter, who explained that normally passive audience members will read lines and occasionally say expletives. Participants will be actors in theater that “drives more empathy and relevancy to environmental and education policies.”
Duffy-Ledbetter explained, “I choose to write about those topics because, during the coursework of last year, I turned in one-page memos or 30-page policy reports. There’s no heart to any of them … The next goal after audience members can connect with the topics a little bit is to have continued engagement with the policy development process.”
The directors hope these productions lead community members to become more conscious of social and political issues and even take action, voting and writing letters to legislators. “Now Is Still Here” is part of a program to inspire conversation and awareness in partnership with the Growing Center, with direct support from volunteer Greg Hill, that continues through October. Projects like these come from the belief that theater can be leveraged to turn hearts and minds.
“When I talk to people, including activists who are so focused on this, everyone feels particularly helpless right now,” King said. “The most important thing that can come out of this is that the plays allow us to … reconnect to those motivations, overcome our sense of helplessness and stasis, and move forward.”
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