The Petrolia-based Human Nature theater company recently concluded a two-month tour of What's Funny About Climate Change? a three-person comedy review.
We performed 24 times in as many locations from our first performance at the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff to our last in Portland, Oregon on the 12th of April. We traveled almost 15,000 miles in the name of green-house gas emissions reductions, seeking always, as the Raven suggests in the show, the most jokes per mile. There are better rationales for burning gas, no doubt, than laughter, but there are worse.
We left home shortly after the single wettest month in anyone's memory (47 inches of rain fell on Petrolia during three weeks in December, 76 inches on Wilder Ridge) and returned in the midst of the wettest April on record. We traveled through the buildup of a war, the war itself, and into the new "peace." In light of such circumstances, we have been forced to admit that this first tour of What's Funny About Climate Change? stopped neither the war nor the pace of climate change. Despite this primary failure, we did accomplish some secondary goals.
We performed for diverse audiences; liberal, conservative, knowledgeable about climate change and largely uninformed. The majority of our sponsors were college and university departments or programs. There was a great deal of diversity even among school audiences. Some cheered our biting satires of the war-driven administration in Washington; some were made uncomfortable by it. Mostly, we were greeted with exceptional enthusiasm. Sponsors were effusive in their praise. Here are a few of dozens of stirring testimonials the company received.
"What's Funny About Climate Change' was inventive in its staging, impressive in its range of characters and perspectives, and compelling in its presentation. Its 80 minutes is quite simply an investment of time that should be made by anyone concerned about the future of our planet."
- Herb Simmens,
Director New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability
"If Moliere were Vonnegut in an earlier life, this would have been his play. Be sure and get the whole congregation there and not just the choir!"
- Bill Burtis,
Clean Air-Cool Planet,
Portsmouth New Hampshire
"This is definitely not a show that will be easily forgotten. I highly recommend Human Nature. I encourage colleges and community theatres across the nation to take advantage of what this wonderfully talented and critically insightful troupe has to offer."
- Peter Schwartzman,
Chair Environmental Studies Program,
Knox College
Human Nature is currently reorganizing, refining, and developing new material for further touring in the fall and winter. It is our hope to be a force of whatever magnitude for full inclusion of global warming and greenhouse gas emission reductions in the political dialogue surrounding the 2004 election.
We are convinced that climate change is a great opportunity. Real solutions to it, while cleansing the atmosphere, will at the same time effectively address many of the world's most urgent problems--poverty and world equity issues at the root of terrorism, economic stagnation in the developed world, war-inducing dependence on "foreign" oil and a whole spectrum of related environmental damage. Are you laughing yet?
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