b'Reflections on Practice Despite our intention to utilise a disturbing climax to evoke audience investment in the ecological crisis, I was mindful that especially young audiences are already surrounded by news of climate catastrophe, (Superhero Clubhouse, no date) and The Impact of Ecotheatre that it is imperative for ecotheatre to sensitively navigate this, lest audiences be educated about the massiveness of the issue, and then succumb to anColley Roberts understandable anxiety, burn-out, grief, and fatalism (Superhero Clubhouse, no date) that is antithetical to spurring progress. In the same way it is vital forColley Roberts reflective essay explores Carl Laverys provocation on why eco-theatre to challenge the imaginations of audiences so they can understand ecotheatre, despite its best activist efforts, may fail to achieve meaningfulthe massiveness of the issue, it must also provide outlets so that audiences can impact.cope with this reality. As a result, we decided to make an extra effort to ensure the audiences unsatisfied emotional energy would be used productively, and create Despite optimistic dreams for how performance can inspire, theatre is also oftenleaflets for the audience members, providing them with suggestions for how to regarded by audiences as solely performative entertainment, and that its politicsproductively and realistically use their desire for change within the ecologicalare therefore vicarious and rhetorical and cannot directly call for the meaningfulcrisis. Despite initial thoughts that we could use these to make the audiencechange that the current ecological crisis demands (Lavery 2016:229). Moreover,members themselves take responsibility for their part in the climate emergency, political theatreincluding ecological theatrecan also unwittingly perpetuateand incentivise lifestyle changes, we realised these notions were misplaced, as political inaction, by risking the audience regarding the artwork [itself] as an emphasising individual responsibility has the political function of leavingimaginative solution , and unwittingly fail to [contest]the hubristic and government and corporations unaccountable, as well as leading individuals [to misguided thinking that [one could] save the planet [solely] through performance,(understandably)] retreat out of a sense of helplessnessagainst the scale of the leaving the audience satisfied that they, as members of the public, have nothingissue (Norgaard, 2018:174). more to add to the debate (Lavery 2016: 233-234).Through practice, Colley questions where responsibility lies and how Therefore, we used the leaflets to combine advice from local climate activist theatremakers can provoke more active change: groups, emphasising to the audience the importance of using their politicalenergy strategically, as well as short but clear instructions (including a link to an I began to consider how our performance could be not just a discrete event, but anemail template) for how to contact our local MP to express investment in theexperience that creates] the conditions for change to occur (Beer, 2021:14). I climate emergencyboth directing their energy towards those who holdconsidered how we could make our performance feel unresolved in a way thatresponsibility over the people, and not making it too daunting a task. In this way, highlights its own failure to act (Lavery, 2016: 232), emphasising that our our final performance attempted to directly tackle several unique factors that lead ecological crisis required further action from our audience members in their ownto both eco-political inaction, such as the publics inability to comprehend thetime. In light of this, we decided we wanted the ending of our piece to feel crisis, and sense of distance, and how theatre as a medium often fails to spur emotionally unsatisfying for the audience, so that they could carry the energy weaction, by removing a satisfying resolution to our piece, and instead using it as an evoked outside of our performance, and into the world where it matters. As a opportunity to sensitively advise the audience on what can be done. result, after leading our audience around the back of our evacuated building,listening to verbatim accounts of people who had survived weather catastrophes in recent years, we sat them at the back of the building, to watch a final physicalBeer, T. (2021). Ecoscenography: An Introduction to Ecological Design forsequence in the dark, wet, and cold. To evoke a strong emotional reaction, thatPerformance. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. we decided would be a sense of injustice, we then had them listen to the sound of politicians and activists arguing the reality and impact of climate change, andLavery, C. (2016) Introduction: performance and ecologywhat can theatre the legitimacy of real-life disasters like the one just simulated. Then, we ended ourdo?, Green Letters, 20(3), pp. 229-236.piece with the voices fading out, and our final performerwho symbolised a figureNorgaard, K. M. (2018). The sociological imagination in a time of climate of powerwalking away from the audience, out of sight, and abandoning them,change, Global and Planetary Change, 163, pp.171-176.making the audience viscerally experience how government neglect harms peoplewithout consequence.Superhero Clubhouse. (2016). What Is Eco-Theater? Available at: https://www.superheroclubhouse.org/what-is-ecotheater/ Accessed 20 December 2024.46 47'