Climate change is irreversible. This is a statement that modern society has lived with for years. Today, the first effects of the climate emergency are beginning to be palpable on Earth, first effects that, like the first sparks of a fire that human action has been feeding year after year with continuous greenhouse gas emissions, foreshadow the tragic effects that are brewing and that will end up destroying the planet. Although, as the protagonist of the play Arde, Groenlandia expresses, humans are taking the first steps to extinguish this destructive flame, we should do much more than take these first steps and, instead of walking, we should start running.
Even so, actions cannot be taken to mitigate its effects if society as a whole is not aware of the seriousness of the emergency and its short- and long-term consequences. To disseminate, from pure scientific rigor while calling for action, the Institute of Science and Theater (InCiTe) has created, together with researchers from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center-Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS), the play Arde, Groenlandia. A production that, after premiering at the Espai d'Arts Escèniques Casal d'Alella, the company's artistic residency space for two months, the production lands this Thursday, June 26, on the stage of the Teatre Eòlia.
This theatrical piece is the result of a long research and co-creation process that has combined climate change and social science researchers linked to the BSC —among them, Mercè Crosas, Rachel Lowe, Nuria Pérez, or Carlos Delgado— and the InCiTe artistic team. A project that, moreover, has materialized with funding from the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology–Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
After interviews and group sessions, various themes and examples were put on the table that could serve to be represented on stage and address the climate emergency. "In the creation process, themes and ideas emerged that could create more than a dozen plays," highlights BSC researcher Mercè Crosas. Finally, after a long co-creation process, it was decided to bet on representing the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is beginning to have visible consequences in the rise of sea level in areas like Greenland. This is how Greenland and its glaciers became protagonists of this story, narrated by the scientist Diana.
Scientific research, then, has been the starting point of this theatrical text, but it has also become a protagonist thanks to Diana, whom the play accompanies from when she was a child passionate about the sea and its inhabitants, to her university stage and her training as a researcher, through an investigation that leads her to travel to Greenland and publish articles warning of the first consequences of the climate emergency.
But science becomes more than a mere protagonist, and acts as the basis from which the text is built. Thus, throughout the play, it is explained not only how climate change originates, in addition to the scientific evidence of human action on the planet, but also the possible future climate scenarios. In addition, complex scientific terms are manifested not only through Diana's words, but also as a strident beep that separates the different stages in the researcher's life and that, every few minutes, reminds the viewer that, despite the various meetings between States and the agreed pacts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the various Progress Reports (Con) of the UN Global Compact show that emissions have only increased in recent decades.
A scientific rigor shared by all works created by InCiTe, a company that pursues the objective of informing and making the viewer understand the complexity of climate change. As if the audience were attending a master class on climate change, like those that sparked the protagonist's curiosity and that will make her pursue her dreams of investigating the evolution of the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, the purpose of the work is, beyond informing, to open doors and questions so that each viewer, individually, can decide what actions to take to mitigate the effects of the climate emergency, which can no longer be stopped.
"The approaches to solving climate change are many and very complex and, therefore, after the play each person can decide what to do, or even do nothing. The objective of the play is not to present a single solution as valid, but to "inform and open doors," defends Susana Eva Martínez. A Doctor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Martínez decided in 2013, after more than 25 years of research and teaching, to hang up her researcher's lab coat to get on stage and found InCiTe, the scientific theater company that has already produced about fifteen plays.
Even so, it is the first time in more than a decade of trajectory —which made her winner of the award granted by The New Barcelona Post during the Nit de l'Empresa i la Cultura organized by the Fundació Catalunya Cultura— that the company addresses the climate emergency, after works that had brought diseases like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's to the stage so that patients and their caregivers could understand them.
In this case, Martínez is accompanied on stage by actresses Anna Roy and Gemma Charines who, for the first time, faced the challenge of performing a scientific play. "When you have a dramatic text, you internalize it and you know you can change words, but in the case of scientific theater it is very important to maintain rigor and use the correct terms. You have to make the emotional journey of the protagonist, Diana, while also making the intellectual journey of understanding and retaining scientific terms," says Roy, who plays the protagonist.
An intellectual journey that has not only served the actresses to memorize the text but has also been crucial in the creative process, as the actresses themselves have served as an audience to determine which parts were not fully understood. "We are over-informed about climate change but, at the same time, we are unaware of its origin; it wasn't until I was 58 that I personally discovered what fossil waste is and its implications," says Charines.
In addition to the intellectual journey, the audience also witnesses Diana's emotional journey, and her anxiety about the competitive scientific system that requires continuously publishing articles, or the frustration of seeing that, despite scientific evidence, society does not mobilize. Thus, personal biography and collective history relate and intertwine because climate change affects not only the life of this researcher, but that of all humans.
After this intellectual journey, the reaction is as expected: an initial overwhelming silence, a sign that the audience is retaining the concepts that have been represented on stage while processing how the climate emergency will affect the planet, which is followed by an infinite number of questions in the post-performance debate about small actions —such as reducing meat consumption, opting for less polluting transport, or mobilizing for governments to adopt measures— that help mitigate the effects of climate change. Even so, the objective of the work is not to offer answers about which measure is most effective, but to open questions that burn within us and challenge us before the irremediable climate change burns the glaciers of Greenland, or any other point on the planet.