Canberra-born theatre maker David Finnigan last year began what he decided would be a six-year stage project, You’re Safe Til 2024. To begin his research, he asked 30 scientists two simple questions: What’s the biggest change happening in the world today? What’s going to happen in the future?
Thus briefed, the playwright employs symbolism and metaphor on stage to communicate climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss and the planet’s ecological future, to try to get past the defences of those who switch off from climate “preaching” and to give hope to climate activists who fall into “numb despair” over government inaction. He wants the subject to “flare in the chests” of his audience rather than be lost to abstraction.
