Scenes from a Climate Era dares to imagine our climate future — 23 different ways. Photo: Brett Boardman.
What might it mean to live in a time when the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat but a daily reality?
In Scenes From the Climate Era, five actors across 23 scenes take audiences on an emotional rollercoaster as characters with vastly different perspectives bring to life snapshots of what our climate future might look like, should we dare imagine it.
Created from interviews, improvisation and research, this production by Belvoir captures the messy, uncertain and deeply human experience of living inside the climate crisis.
The play does not offer solutions. There’s no linear narrative in Scenes From the Climate Era – no beginning, no neat resolution. It doesn’t tell audiences what to think, and there’s no hero riding in to save the day.
Actor Brittany Santariga says, instead, it presents one intimate, unresolved vignette after another — urgent, beautiful and emotional snapshots of life in a shifting world.
“There’s no one big epiphany scene. It’s all one big ‘ah-ha’ moment,” she says.
Structured in four parts, the play mirrors the emotional stages people experience around climate change: denial, solutions, despair and hope.
“Throughout the play, there’s this strong theme — the world is bigger than us. It’s been through so many changes. It will come out the other side of this crisis. We just don’t know what that new reality looks like — or if we’ll be around to see it,” Santariga says.
“There’s no end to the play, only forward motion, curiosity and, hopefully, the realisation that we can’t sit in that stage of denial indefinitely.
“It doesn’t have the answers — just prompts to start the conversation, because we’re all going through it, so we might as well go through it together.”
Santariga, known for Latecomers (2022), Home and Away and Critical Incident (2024), plays eight characters — from one half of a couple debating whether it’s ethical to have a child, to a scientist contemplating pest eradication via genetic modification.
“Most plays are structured with a crisis peaking about three-quarters of the way in, and a resolution at the end. Here, each scene explores its own arc. You have to find the character’s truth in a matter of minutes,” she says.
“Each role offers a different lens: in one, I might play someone in despair. In another, a scientist with practical solutions. It’s been an interesting challenge to understand each of their perspectives, and despite that, they all want the same outcome. That alone is a message for the audience.”
The subject matter is heavy, but dark humour and the dynamic short-scene format make it surprisingly approachable.
In fact, Santariga says the play invites a deep contemplation of the topic of climate change that makes it all seem, if not hopeful, at least less isolating.
“For years, I was in denial about the climate — I think it’s a protective mechanism. Only in the last five years have I started cycling between solution-seeking, despair, hope and — sometimes — denial again. The journey is not always linear,” Santariga says.
“It’s something we’re all grappling with, and there can be an almost overwhelming feeling of not knowing what we can do about this colossal, existential threat. But as we see through the play, connection can be found among humans.
“My hope is the play will bring people together, spark conversations and promote a realisation that we can help each other get through this.”
Scenes from the Climate Era shows at The Q on Wednesday, 4 June, and Thursday, 5 June (World Environment Day) at 7:30 pm — book through TicketSearch.
