TICKETS ON SALE NOW! - Javeenbah Theatre - Scenes from a Climate Era

Written by the director: Jocelyn Moore-Carter

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One hundred years ago, this year, contemporary theatre’s most influential innovator, Bertold Brecht moved to Berlin, developed his anti-illusionist ‘Epic Theatre’ using the model of sports for the stage and premiered his play Man Equals Man. From this point, live theatre was given permission to go in a new direction: instead of JUST entertaining audiences, it could now challenge them to look at the world and human interactions from different viewpoints, to question social norms and to activate change.

Javeenbah Theatre stages works in their Nerang Playhouse, that suit all tastes; some shows are purely for entertainment, others challenge our views and provoke conversations. Scenes from the Climate Era written by David Finnigan, and directed by Jocelyn Moore-Carter embraces all contemporary theatre offers and promises to engage audiences with an entertaining and thought provoking exploration of life during the ‘Climate Era’.

Jam packed with info, humanity and truth, but never wagging a finger in your face, Scenes from the Climate Era is a play about now. About the choices we made yesterday and the difficult beauty of tomorrow.

Director Jocelyn Moore-Carter was privileged to be in the audience at Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney in 2023 for the premier performance of this play and was so moved by the script and its possibilities that she had to submit it for inclusion in Javeenbah’ s 2025 playbill, and she is now excited that its Queensland premiere is nearly upon us.  David Finnigan is a writer and theatre maker from Ngunnawal country, Australia, who creates work at the intersection of science and art. He has worked with climate and Earth System scientists from institutions including the University College, London and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and spoken about his art-science work at the TED conference in Vancouver and the European Geoscience Union Assembly in Vienna.

But for Moore-Carter, whilst the research driven content is fascinating, the beauty of Finnigan’s writing and his ability to bring pathos and humour to a range of characters and situations across a non-linear narrative spanning 50+ years is what makes this play such a masterful work.

Javeenbah’s production sees seven actors from 16 to 60 on stage, each playing multiple characters with a range of views and attitudes to life across the planet. The cast are: Jenny White, Jessica White, Megan Frener, Rhyll Tadeschi, Felix Boros, and making their community theatre debuts at Javeenbah, Hayley Wills and Maddison Vecanski.  The play is a mosaic of snapshots capturing how it feels to live through this historical planetary transformation. As stated in The Guardian it is ‘The world’s biggest story told in 50 scenes over 80 minutes’.

“It has been a delight every step of this production. The cast are so intelligent and giving as we trial a range of Brechtian conventions in this performance. We are all learning together, about the planet and climate, but also about stretching the boundaries of community theatre performance,” says Moore-Carter. “ We have a totally white set, replicating a glacial landscape, but also a clear space upon which we can interpret multiple different locations and times. Brecht initiated the idea of a blank stage with basic transformative props and sets, and we have had such fun engaging with this form of performance”.

Another well-known contributing artist is Hunter Wall. Beside his own extraordinary directing and acting work, Hunter is masterful in creating evocative soundscapes in all his own plays. He has collaborated on this production, and created an amazing underscore for this production, which brings another level of engagement of the audience, at times becoming visceral. Whilst Brecht only wanted audiences to critically think, the beauty of contemporary texts like Scenes from the Climate Era is that we can cherry-pick from all those artists who have gone before us, and this show will not only engage your thinking, but also your emotions. At once you will cry over lost species, or the predictions of a bleak future and laugh at the nuances of real human interactions and joy that can be found in the everyday. Finnigan also allows directors to choose from his 80+ scenes and to re-order them to suit their own context, and Javeenbah has enjoyed shaping the structure to end with positivity and hope.

As part of Javeenbah’s commitment to engaging the Gold Coast’s young people, they have invited participating schools from the Gold Coast Secondary Schools’ Drama Festival, for which they are the major sponsor of the intermediate (year 9 and 10) section, to share the stage as a ‘support act’ for Scenes From the Climate Era. On Sunday 26 October, The Southport School will perform their original work Man Enough, which was one of the top 4 plays at this year’s festival in August. What a terrific afternoon of entertainment with 2 plays for the price of one!

And, as Javeenbah welcomes all people to their Nerang playhouse they will be presenting an Auslan interpreted performance on Saturday 25 October.

So, for one amazing weekend of entertainment, that will have you laughing, crying, thinking and talking, be sure to attend one of three shows only, of

Scenes From the Climate Era, at the Nerang Playhouse (corner of Ferry and Stevens Streets, Nerang) on  24 and 25 October at 7.30pm and 26 October at 2.00pm. Jump on Javeenbah Theatre’s website or socials for booking.