b'Filling the Stage with the EarthEssayHolly HartleyHolly Hartley writes about performing at The Willow Globe, an open-air community theatre in Powys, Wales, as part of the module Shakespeare and Ecodramatugy in Practice.Stepping onto the stage of The Willow Globe (YThe other group, with whom I performed, took Glb Byw) in Llanwrthwl almost felt like walk- a more abstract view, exploring how religion and ing through the doors of the Wardrobe and intopower can poison our relationships with each oth-Narnia. Surrounded by the looming peaks of theer and the natural world, using the Genesis story Brecon Beacons, I almost worried that our per- and Shakespeares Cymbeline. Our piece was called formances might get lost in the whistling of theDoes the World Go Round? Although I cant wind and the cries of swallows high above. I wasspeak for all members of our group, I found that instantly awe-struck by how much wildlife thisperforming on the Willow Globe stage felt other-venue was able to sustain; everywhere you turnedworldly and was an experience Ill never forget. there were wildflowers, birds of prey, and tiny unseen creatures scurrying under rocks, logs andOne thing I took away from the Shakespeare between blades of grass and Ecodramaturgy module was the focus on the relationship between globality and locality in We peer between the intricate stems of thethe context of performance in the climate crisis. grass forests and see the ground-floor peoplePerforming at the Willow Globe allowed me to about their business of living: grasshoppers,clarify all that I had learnt this termthe abil-ants, beetles, and a host of tiny creatures thatity to look both altruistically and inward at our hurry this way and that (BB, 1947: xi) human relationships and connection with ecology. This mindset seemed to align perfectly with the Our journey to performing on this stage was morepassion for bringing together people of all ages than just a four-hour drive over hill, over dale,and backgrounds to explore and enjoy theatre, through bush, through brier, over park, overwhich is at the heart of the work of Shakespeare pale, through flood and, luckily, not throughLink (the company associated with the Willow fire. It began at the beginning of this term whenGlobe) . It was a privilege to be provided with Dr. Evelyn OMalley first introduced the con- the opportunity to explore an intense focus on cept of ecodramaturgy to our class. To this day,our localitieswith global eyes in the back of our I do somewhat struggle with pinning down whatheads, scanning for interrelatedness (Chaudhuri ecodramaturgy means; however, I think theet al., 2018) on the Willow Globe stage, and Id ambiguity of this term is what allowed our cohortnever connected with an audience more than to create such diverse pieces of theatre. One groupwhen I performed there. told the story of todays obsession with consum-erism and the fast-paced industrialisation ofTo quote another text that Evelyn introduced us Britains once rugged, wild spaces, entitling theirto, written by Zoe Svendsen: art exists for many performance Gold and Silver Turned to Dust.reasons, but art does not exist to get it right, or At the start of the term, Evelyn introduced usdeliver solutions. Art does not exist to be agreed to the Climate Lens Playbook, which encouraged uswith (Svendsen 2021). I believe this module to think about who drives the carbon economy?helped us to loosen our creative boundaries. We Who profits? Who suffers? I thoroughly enjoyedwere able to step outside our need to be arbitrar-how this groups performance, with their use ofily categorised and rated. Though it was still our music and humour, helped the audience to disag- focus to create an effective performance, we shift-gregate the human (Chaudhuri et al., 2018) anded our concern to devising a piece that introduced think about their own association with carbona set of ideas to an audience that might not have Students from the Shakespeare and Ecodramatugy in Practice module performing for the Cymbeline in the Anthropocene culture.viewed climate change in that way. As a young project at the Willow Globe. person living in an increasingly tumultuous time, Photo: Jon Primrose16 17'