Climate Staged: The Place of Theatre in The Great Immensity

Abstract

Steve Cosson and Michael Friedman already had climate change on their minds when they encountered The Great Immensity. Sitting in a small boat in the Panama Canal, conducting research for a new work on environmental issues for their theatre company The Civilians, Cosson, a playwright, and Friedman, a composer and lyricist, were nearly overtaken by a giant container ship with its name etched in Chinese letters across its side (Peters). The ship’s name would become the name of their musical play, and their memory of being overwhelmed by unmanageable and indifferent forces its governing perspective. As Cosson later described it, the experience taught them that the challenge of grasping the full complexity of global ecological crisis, not only its science but also the “economics, policy, political sides of the issue,” feels “like being in a little boat while a great ship goes by” (qtd. in Peters). This anecdote, an...