Micky Jo (0:00)

It is just as unfortunate a reality as the climate crisis itself that audiences are disillusioned with hearing about the climate crisis. How then do you create a piece of theatre that will leave attendees feeling galvanized and hopeful in spite of the slow death of the planet? The answer just opened in the West End. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Micky Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre theatre. I am a professional theatre critic here on social media and today I am going to be reviewing the West End's newest play, Kyoto, which has just transferred to at Soho Place for a limited run after an acclaimed limited season at the Royal Shakespeare Company last year. The play, written by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, who together make up one of its producers, Good Chance Theatre, follows the landmark 1997 climate conference in Kyoto, Japan, a coming together of the world's developed and developing nations where, after years of fruitless negotiations, they were finally able to put together a legitimate plan to reduce fossil fuel emissions on a global international scale amidst the growing scientific understanding of the implications of global warming. And it's a hugely interesting piece of theatre with plenty for us to discuss. I mean, everything from its unconventional staging to the way that it manages to theatricalize a climate conference in a way that feels compelling, that feels entertaining, in spite of the seemingly uninteresting subject matter and the unwieldy nature of the basis. Key to its success are a few particular creative choices from the playwrights as well as from directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, who recently collaborated together on Stranger Things, the First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre, all of which we will be discussing in today's review. If you enjoy this one, make sure to subscribe or follow me wherever you are, seeing my face or hearing my voice. And stay tuned for many more reviews of West End and Broadway shows coming very soon. And if you have also had the opportunity to see Kyoto on stage, either in its new home at at Soho Place or previously in Stratford upon Avon, please let me and everyone else know what you thought of it in the comments sect down below. This is one of those incredibly rich pieces of theatre that I think you could take an awful lot from, and I'm probably still going to be thinking about it for days to come. And there's going to be so many things that, frustratingly I wish I could have put into this review. But we are here now and I am desperate to tell you what I think. So here it is. Now I Want to start this review a little differently by talking about the ethos and the intention and the almost mission statement behind this piece of theatre. This is co produced, as I said, by Good Chance Theatre and written by those two playwrights, Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy, who previously worked together on the Jungle. That piece, having been directly inspired by their experiences meeting and working with refugees in Calais in France. Next, turning their attention towards the climate crisis. They have a very steep hill to climb because, as I mentioned at the beginning of this video, we know that audiences and society in general is disillusioned about this issue. We need only to look to the reactions of theatre goers when West End musicals about revolution are interrupted by peaceful protests. There are a lot of people who go to the theatre to encounter human truths, but would rather not be interrupted by the inconvenience of them. And there is no question in my mind that it would not work to simply put a piece of theatre on stage that confronts audiences with the harsh reality of the climate crisis as it currently stands and demands some kind of response. So what then do you do? And one of the brilliant things about Kyoto is that it doesn't focus on today, it doesn't focus on the now, it doesn't focus on the future. It focuses on events in the past in the years leading up to this conference in 1997. And it delivers a great story and audience will engage with and will respond to a great story. Furthermore, that particular story is filled with events and personalities and factual realities that will make that audience feel galvanized and understand the futility and the frustration of advocating for action at the highest international and political levels. And so, reflecting on this great story and looking at this turning point moment in the history of climate change can be the thing that makes audiences inadvertently care about the climate right now. Beyond that as well, there's something else that Good Chance Theatre strive for in these productions, which is to find hope and to find unity and to use theater as a tool to foster togetherness and to bring people together. Now, I've told you what Kyoto covers. Let me explain a little about the nature of how it is presented to us. Because the whole play doesn't take place simply in 1997 at this conference. We really only arrive to that in the play's second act. The first thing that happens is we establish who our narrator protagonist is. And he, interestingly enough, is something of an anti hero. His name is Don Perlman. He is a true historical, factual character. And he was an American lawyer and pro oil lobbyist at the Very beginning of the show before we meet him and he delivers this opening narration. We see these recorded videos of people in contemporary society having increasingly large disagreements, eventually giving way to footage of protests and riots. Don then arrives and contextualizes this as what he calls the golden age of disagreement, talking about how complicated and fraught society has become and then allowing us to all reflect together on the 1990s, which is played off as a witty enough framing device, but in fact the nature of discord and disagreement will become this through line in the Thing and sort of the story beneath the story. One of multiple stories beneath the story as it characterizes disagreement almost as a pollutant accelerating beyond the rate of fossil fuel emissions. This is important dramatic context for the story that we're about to be told, but it also serves to endear this character to a British audience because he's presenting something that is entirely reasonable. He's talking about society in a way that we can all agree with. And there is no better way to endear a character specifically to a British audience than to have him say something reasonable. Politicians have been elected on less. Now, you may be wondering why it's this anti hero character who is going to walk us through this plot that is going to leave us on the right side of the climate change conversation, on the proactive side of the climate change conversation. And this is perhaps the smartest choice in the entire piece. It's not the first piece of theatre to conceive the idea of being led through by this villainous presence. It's familiar of Iago in Othello, as he actively tells us about the steps he's trying to take to undermine the action and the progress of these councils and of these committees. It's also familiar of Salieri in Peter Schaeffer's Amadeus, who talks about plotting against a young Moz. And I also think to allow us as the audience to have our hands held dramatically by this presence, to have him walk us through this entire narrative over years and to still have faith that we are going to understand it from the perspective that we do at the end of the Thing shows an extraordinary trust in the material, but also in, you know, the moral inevitability of it all. That same understanding that the audience would be endeared to him at the beginning because he's saying something reasonable, understands that reasonably, we can't do anything but see the situation from a certain perspective. Now, the way that this really plays out is that it's presented from Don's recollection and he bears witness to these various different meetings and conferences and exchanges and private meetings and plots. And with the conference floor set at one end of the space, but spilling out into the auditorium with a half a dozen audience members sat around it, among the participants, the representatives from different countries, we see these various different sessions, these various different meetings taking place among us. Now, key here is that the various political machinations, the scientific explanation, all of this is provided to us, the audience, by Don, to facilitate the whole thing moving at the pace that it needs to. He parenthesizes implied agendas, financial self interests, all of that. The result is something which works satisfyingly in a dramatic context on various different levels, but it is vital and gripping and frustrating and ultimately satisfying and relatably human in a surprising way. At the same time, with this all playing out on the world's largest political stage, it's also impossibly beyond our reach. Now, here's why it works. First of all, it's a remarkable story in and of itself. The same thing would work very well adapted for film or for a television miniseries. This kind of. Even with us being told at the beginning, even with us entering with the context, if you know about this historically, that it was ultimately successful, it seems, even as we approach it, so impossible that these various different representatives from different developing and developed countries would ever come to any kind of an agreement. They are so politically opposed, they are so culturally opposed. There is such indignation towards the representative from the United States who has to answer for a disproportionate amount of the world's emissions. There is righteous fury from the young representative from the island nation of Kiribati, whose people stand to lose more amidst rising sea levels, a consequence of global warming, which at the beginning of the play isn't even really being taken seriously, isn't permitted by everyone present at this conference to be considered factual. For much of the thing, a singular scientific opinion has yet to prevail, and when it does, it becomes a significant plot point. There is also the representative from Saudi Arabia, who initially seems characterized to us as more of a villain among these proceedings. It is alongside him that Don has become an advisor, placed there by a group called the Seven Sisters, consisting of a group of oil corporations who understandably have a lot to lose. So at the beginning of the play, they hire Don and he becomes an advisor to Saudi Arabia. That is his means of infiltrating the proceedings. And throughout the Thing, he uses various methods of obfuscation and delay in order to attempt to derail a conversation about climate change and Any progress towards addressing and resolving it at every turn. And yet it's the most remarkable, unbelievable, believable conclusion. With all of these last minute interventions and the sudden coming together of these individuals. He can scarcely believe what happens himself. You also have these grand theatricalized personalities and even the idea of having national representatives, these figureheads from these different places giving these speeches, entering into asides from that conference floor area and dialogue with each other, having these different political machinations behind them. This is all inher very Shakespearean. The whole nature of this kind of a conference is also inherently very theatrical. You have your group of players, you have this turn based system of making these speeches, of making these presentations, and it sparks relationships and it breeds debate and animosity. We've seen more than enough plays where people argue around a dining room table. Here people are still arguing around a table. It's just a significantly bigger table. There's another thing going on in the background as well. I mentioned to you that Saudi Arabia initially feels like a villainous presence in this because they are motivated by an interest in the world continuing to use oil. Later on in the thing, when they are confronted by the chairman, we'll talk about him a little bit later on. The representative from Saudi Arabia talks about the fact that they have only recently, in the grand scheme of things, come into control of their own assets, that for much of their history, the inherent wealth of their nation has been taken from them by larger global powers. And a big factor in the way that these countries interact with each other is this kind of post colonial resentment, this legitimate post colonial resentment, and what becomes a distinct rivalry between developed and developing countries. I spoke before about this initial framing and the discussion of disagreement as a concept. This is something that then comes back as he watches, as Don watches, dumbfounded, as all of these nations inexplicably manage to reach an accord, one that he didn't think was possible for much of the second act. The key detail here is that because of a loophole within the bylaws of these meetings, they have to reach an absolute unanimous consensus in order to approve any kind of framework from the conference. This becomes hugely challenging because any individual nation of which he is trying to corrupt several could get in the way of this, could halt the proceedings entirely simply by walking. Donna and the audience are left questioning how much of this was the States reaching a compromise because they were able to, and how much of it was them agreeing simply because they wanted to. The big picture question being what will it take for us as human beings to come together in spite of insurmountable differences. There is one more level that this all works on as well, because we see a glimpse into his personal life alongside the professional. We see his wife, Shirley, who follows him to these different conferences around the world. Only slightly begrudgingly, she gets to travel. But they have a metaphorical role to play here because she is a reasonable woman who trusts her husband when he tells her they are on the right side of it. This is a huge moment in the play when she asks him outright, are we on the right side of this? But she begins to suspect otherwise when a hit piece is published about him in Der Spiegel, characterizing him as the villain amidst the carbon crisis. She represents this complicit idea of trust in spite of better judgment. He, meanwhile, is opposed to the science, insists that the science is not clear, and is determined to uphold what he calls the American ideal, this idea of freedom, this idea that America in its glory should not be prevented from behaving in the way that it wishes, that industry should not be slowed, that jobs should not be destroyed, that an individual should have the right to get in their car and drive wherever they want to and live their life as he sees fit. Much of this motivated by a little insight. We get into his own backstory as a child of Jewish Lithuanian immigrants to the United States who was denied entry to an Ivy League school because they had already reached what they called their Jewish quota. In response to this, he gained admission to two superior schools. But that really is the closest thing we get to his driving force, personally. That's it, initially, anyway. Everything beyond that just starts to feel like he is a man determined and possessed. Now we also get a handful of references to their son. She complains that he doesn't take an interest in their son's life, that he doesn't know what he's doing. This feels very representative of the next generation, the one who. I mean, we never meet this character. They literally don't get a voice in these proceedings. They are the ones being robbed of this future. There is a moment where he says he's not gonna have to live with this reality, even if it does exist, because he's going to be dead. This is Don. I mean, his children, however, would be confronted with this reality. And there is an interesting moment towards the end of the play where he rehearses a phone conversation that he would have with his son. And it feels like we get to experience a slight moment of guilt in that and of culpability. Now, I do think the writing is just Extraordinary. Showing us just the right moments. From each of these preliminary conferences to build towards our understanding of those final moments in Kyoto, we gain the necessary insights into each of these countries to understand what motivates their leaders. We come to understand the amount of time spent debating over specific vocabulary and even punctuation in certain articles, in certain paragraphs of this drafted agreement. We are empowered to feel like experts in this conference by the time that they come to represent its most fateful hours. And after a play spent jumping from one year to the next, traveling around the world, the final few scenes take place at this landmark Kyoto conference, where it ran through the night uninterrupted for hours. I also think very smartly that the script speaks to some of the limitations of the staging and the staging to some of the limitations of the script. What I mean by that is that in the script they tell us that they're having this momentary meeting in, I think they say, like, a cleaning cupboard or a corridor or something, which can't be represented on this single set. And in the staging, because we can't convey a meeting which took place over 16 hours without locking all of these people inside of the theatre. The staging in the direction takes measures to convey the pace of the ratification and whether the meeting felt tedious or whether it suddenly became fast paced and energized and slightly intimidating. And there were a few other shortcomings that I found personally in both the script and in the staging. When we meet the seven Sisters, the individuals engaging Don Perlman to act on their behalf at this conference, to try and delay it, to try and obstruct it, they are depicted as dark and mysterious. And it feels insincere to the extent that it sort of undermines the legitimate menace of that concept. Like, I don't think any part of that terrifying level of financial power and control and manipulation ought to be played for laughs. I also think there's an inevitability when talking about these historic chapters, especially pre 2000, that we're always going to focus in on the actions and the lives of these exceptional historic men. There's not a lot that they can do about that because it's a factual story. And I do appreciate that a certain amount of deference is given in the conclusion to Don Perlman's wife, Shirley. But we'll talk about that a little bit later. I also think, in terms of where our perspective sits, that many other nations have a significant role to play. But it does still feel like we're rooted in the idea of Britain and the US as the sort of saviors of the situation. And again, this may have been true of the conference, particularly the intervention of John Prescott. At least the way it's depicted on stage, it seems to suggest that. But the more powerful moments to me were the speech given by the representative from Kiribati and another by the representative from Tanzania, taking the First World truly to task. Now, screens were used at either end of the auditorium to display some relevant materials alongside the proceedings. I would have liked, and this happened sometimes, but not consistently, where we were discussing specific sentences and specific paragraphs from the Kyoto agreement to see that visually represented. At the same time, I do want to talk about the direction from Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin. I thought it was a pretty masterful theatricalization. It was, to some extent, a little bit of a caricature of the proceedings. There is a moment where sue, the representative from the United States, was trying to win over support from representatives from other nations, delivering this PowerPoint presentation. That was obviously comical, but it's the reality of much of it. The way that it's staged, the way that we are all among them sat on the conference floor. Audience members are given lanyards, situating them literally as delegates. It has different countries on the back and little bits of information about those countries, allowing them to feel like participants in the conference, sharing in the stakes of the whole thing, feeling like when they finally come to an agreement, it's all of us coming to an agreement. Again, continuing the metaphor that this is what is possible for humanity. Those who are seated around the playing space have actors coming and sitting between them for much of the play. They stand and bow along with those characters at the start of the Kyoto Conference, when we move to Japan in the second act, parts of the auditorium are gestured to and invoked throughout as we acknowledge different nations voting in support. And the playing space itself, this circular set design from Miriam Buther that becomes several different things. I mean, largely, it is the conference floor. It also becomes a representation of the stage in the historic Kiyomizu Dera Temple in Kyoto, when we meet the man who will become Don's principal rival in the conference chairman, Raul Estrada. He plays a game with him where he tries to convince Don that it's possible for the two of them to agree. So he creates what he calls a circle of agreement. This is also represented by the space as well. Raoul is another factually historic character who is referred to colloquially as the hero of Kyoto for the way that he took over the proceedings and wrestled everyone into accordance. There's some brilliant use of music as well. Don is occasionally aware of the underscoring that we are hearing as a scientist is confronting him towards the end of the first act about the actions which Don has taken which have ruined his life. Basically the actions that Don has taken to discredit this man because he can't discredit his findings and his research. On another occasion, there is a drum kit used to reflect the cavalier attitude that Don has towards the way that he is behaving and the way that he sees this as a circus. Another of my favorite direction details. We have more screen along the sides of the playing space that show the 28 different sections of the final Kyoto agreement. And it shows as they each get approved in the play's final moments, as they are racing through these ratifications and Raul is repeatedly banging with a gavel to mark each section that has been approved. The combination of the visual and that thunderous sound punctuates creates this celebratory moment. And there are a few more utterly defining moments of the play as well. I mentioned the conversation that Don had with his wife Shirley, where she asked him, are we on the wrong side of this? There are a couple of extraordinary moments of argument around word choices, around vocabulary, around punctuation. The first being a standoff between Don and the scientist who I mentioned as they trade back and forth 28 different antonymous adjectives which might be used to describe the extent to which global warming is understood to have been impacted as a result of man made fossil fuel emissions. But it's this perfect boiled down reduction of the act of political obfuscation, this utter pointlessness in the way of progress. This goes even further in the second act as all of the different representatives enter into this cacophonous manic opera of pointlessness. As everyone starts start speaking in punctuation and demanding, this becomes a closed bracket and this becomes quotation marks. And it's deliberately rendered absurd to demonstrate how ridiculous the whole thing is. Now, at almost exactly the same time is my favorite moment of the entire play. Because we have seen for the whole thing, without really questioning it, all of these different representatives from different places around the world, in conversation, in dialogue, in debate, and as the conference draws on and on and on and begins to last through the night. The UN interpreters have to leave the building. And it's at this point that all of these different characters, who up until this point have all been speaking English, suddenly begin to speak in their native languages. And suddenly the dialogue continues, but no one can understand each other and members of the audience can only follow those languages which they understand. This is not the first time that a language barrier has been used and invoked dramatically in this way. But it's such a satisfying moment in the play, and at a point when it feels like this particular hurdle is rising to an insurmountable height, it's this moment of fear and hopelessness. Finally, and feel free to skip through this section if you don't want to know, but I do want to talk a little bit about the play's conclusion, because I think with something with an important message like this is. This is. It's so important the way that it chooses to leave the audience, as I mentioned before, it gives deference to Shirley. And as she talks to us about the way that her husband would go on to continue opposing climate change and leading to his eventual death, she says this remarkable thing. Positioning herself among the audience, she asks aloud the question, why am I listening to someone I don't know speak about someone I don't like? And then she gives the answer, which is that we constantly encounter people that we don't know and people that we don't like. And the nature of agreement has to be able to transcend that. It has to be possible for us to find a way to compromise and to come together. There has to be hope that in this, the golden age of disagreement, as they call it, human beings can still find a way to come together. And it's exactly as she is, invoking this shared humanity, which we all have, that we are presented with this beautiful visual of cherry blossoms falling around her. Which sounds beautiful, but really it's haunting because before this, this, we have been told that the way that the Japanese culture measures seasons is in response to nature, and the most important event being the falling of the cherry blossoms. And that this is being observed as happening earlier and earlier. It's an indication of the progress of climate change, of things continuing to move in that direction, despite whatever concessions were made by the world during the 1997 Kyoto conference, which by all accounts was a good and hard won step in the right direction, but arguably not nearly enough. And isn't that so genius to leave us with something that implores us to find this shared humanity and to find hope in that. And, you know, the last few events of the play have led us to feel hopeful about that, while reminding us at the same time, this is what I took from it at least, that we are at all points moving towards human extinction. Now, I think this play, its themes, its writing, its intentions, its direction are entirely remarkable. I do also want to talk about performances of a few members of the company. Stephen Kunkan plays Don Perlman with such determination and unexpected charisma. He presents to us this truly complex and layered and realized antihero and his acceleration towards this singularly focused determination and rage is so, so convincingly played. Ferdy Roberts does excellent comic work, in particular when playing British representative John Prescott. Raad Rawi is terrific in this. Dale Rapley is terrific in this. Ayesha Kosoko and Andrea Kachalian also both fantastic, full of conviction and passion. Many of the early conference scenes work to establish us among this believable and realistic conference setting, but theirs are the performances which take us to this heightened dramatic realm, which is important. Nancy Crane is quite wonderful playing sue, the representative from the United States, particularly as she becomes more frustrated and she encounters more roadblocks largely put in place by Don. Jenna Organ is so, so good as his wife Shirley. It's a slow burn of a performance, but what she gets to do in the second act as she starts to come to terms with their position in this, she starts to realize her husband's allegiances as she gets to play that conflict. Kristen Atherton also gives a winning performance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jorge Bosch plays Raoul Estrada, the hero of Kyoto, and characterizes him as the utter inverse of Don. This perfect, perfect foil to him in his warmth, in his patience, in his optimism. Faced with a charismatic bad guy, he brings us a hero who proves even more charming, who we can root for. And so that has been my review as well as some of my feelings in response to the brilliant Kyoto at Soho Place. I think this is a piece of theatre which is powerful and brilliant and important all at once, which is my favorite kind of dramatic theatre. I think it's urgent, I think it's timely. I think it addresses something vital and current by looking to the recent past. I think what it's doing is exceptional and it happens to be doing it exceptionally well. Please go and see this play while it is on at Soho Place. This is a thorough recommendation from me and if you have seen it already, I would love to know what you thought. Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below. If you have already seen Kyoto. Thank you for listening to this review. I hope that you enjoyed if you did, make sure to subscribe for more theatre coverage from me very soon, both on YouTube and on podcast platforms and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh, my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.