Pioneering climate change plays to be revived in UK theatres

A double bill of plays that premiered 10 years ago and were hailed as the first big theatre productions to tackle the climate crisis head-on are to be updated and revived.

The Donmar Warehouse and Theatr Clwyd are to stage Steve Waters’ The Contingency Plan, a pair of plays first performed at the tiny Bush Theatre in west London in 2009.

In his review, the Guardian’s Michael Billington called them an urgent wake-up call, presenting the issues in compelling human terms. He wrote: “We have waited a long time for a play that dealt comprehensively with climate change. Steve Waters has generously provided two.”

They were directed by Michael Longhurst and Tamara Harvey, now in charge of the Donmar and Theatr Clwyd respectively and both keen for them to be seen by a wider audience.

Longhurst said it felt at the time “that we were breaking through with something, that it was a major piece of work … an epic pair of plays that were really putting the subject on the agenda in an exciting and engaging theatrical form – and doing that possibly for for the first time. I think the credibility of those plays has stood up since.”

They have asked Waters to update the works, looking at the science and political context.

One of the plays, On the Beach, features a glaciologist who has been studying an iceberg called Pine Island that was then melting swiftly. “It’s gone now, it’s just gone,” Longhurst said.

Both theatres will also work with Julie’s Bicycle, a nonprofit organisation that works within the creative industries, to ensure the coproduction is made sustainably.

The revival was announced as part of Longhurst’s second season as artistic director of the Donmar.

Other productions include Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood and the world premiere of an adaptation by Tim Price of Ruben Östlund’s film Force Majeure, which features skiing and an avalanche.

“It feels utterly impossible to put on the stage but that became the appeal of it,” said Longhurst, who will direct. “Ultimately it is a close-up, forensic look at a marriage imploding and it will be brilliant.”