This isn't about the theory, it's about the practice
Our first visit to the new (to us) Soho Place Theatre (it opened in October 2022) to see the RSC’s Kyoto.
Whilst this follows the actions on Climate Change through to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol it is really the (limited) biography of the US Republican lawyer Don Pearlman and his actions to thwart attempts to legislate against fossil fuels as part of the UN’s Climate Change activity.
Positing him as the arm of the sinister ‘Seven Sisters’ (the US and global petroleum industry) it enters full scale conspiracy theory, although it has to be said that Pearlman’s actions via his NGO ‘The Climate Council’ were certainly conspiratorial.
That he was a Republican, that he considered that the petroleum industry was the basis of US economic success and attempts to stall its activities were a threat to the USA is undoubted. Nor is the fact that he worked with Arab petroleum producers to stimy accord.
But, as regards non-cooperation across all the UN nations, he was pushing at fully open doors here, and the more interesting question is how agreement was eventually won at Kyoto (the second act) through Raúl Estrada-Oyuela’s chairmanship of the meeting.
This is very much an ensemble piece (Pearlman and Estrada-Oyuela apart, excellently acted by Mark Hammersley (Pearlman) as cover in only his second performance and Jorge Bosch as Estrada-Oyuela) – the other actors covered multiple parts as different country players (and sinister conspirators).
The play is (almost) in the round – a circular thrust – and the set is a conference table when it isn’t other things. It is very well choreographed (directed seems too tame a word) and the progress (or not) of each meeting is, well actually quite exciting – even and especially the desperate attempts – actually over several hours - to redraft a single paragraph with shouted punctuation around the table.
In the end you have to enjoy the spectacle rather than worry about the underlying conspiracy theory – with touches of Illuminati and shady suppressed knowledge.
And it is enjoyable – well - very.