One of the key features of the performance is dealing with modern day political issues such as global warming. This immediately has relevance to the audience because it is a political issue with is effecting them today. However, people are more interested in performances showing relationship problems because they feel it connects to them more than a political issue such as global warming. In this performance the storyline puts across the issue of global warming to the audience using the theme of relationships in order for the audience members to feel more connected to the play.
The character of Graham deals with these personal and political issues in a different way to the character of Claire. For example, Graham is sent to Canada to attend his father’s funeral. This is the personal issue he has to deal with, the loss of a father he never had. After meeting his half brother he realises that his father abandoned him and all aspects of his life in England to start a new life in Canada. The man that he thought his father was was not the man he was going to bury in Canada.
The political issue concerning Graham is the fact that his deceased father campaigned on the effect of climate change and how it can affect the planet. The dilemma now for Graham is to decide whether or not to continue his father’s work on global warming or to abandoned it just as once his father abandoned him.
For the character of Claire, however the political-personal battle is of a different nature. Her life evolved around working for the government on the issue of climate change which has gradually taken over her life with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend tries to get her to take a break from her political life and go to Mexico with him so he could break the world record of deep water cave diving. She refuses, however he still tries to change her mind which causes him to miss his chance as someone else claims the world record of diving at 1000 feet. Claire breaks up with him as a result of her political commitment. He however attempts to break the record again of diving even more than the current record. This results in him dying in the attempt. Once Claire realises of his death this brings enormous amounts of guilt on her as she never told him she was pregnant, and in a way feels responsible of his death by not going to Mexico when he first asked her to.
It isn’t just the meaning of the play that has been cleverly thought of and devised. The alternating and overlapping plot lines are always clear, but it was the inventive stage pictures as such and the amazing atmospheric sound effects. The way the stage was set out wasn’t traditional for a play on stage. Apple laptops were always to be seen either up stage or back of the stage. The composer and sound designer, Tim Phillips, shares the stage with the actors, who themselves would move pieces of the set to create the next seen or to expand the current scene or provide atmospheric sound effects ranging from dripping water leaking from a roof top, to a deep-sea dive. Even though the technician and his equipment were on stage, it was all located at the far back and side of the stage. The actors even spoke to the sound technician throughout the performance which is not something you would expect. The traditional on-stage off-stage relationship was not used and it did not affect the narratives of the performance.
Many different acting styles were used throughout the performance. At the beginning it did feel quiet confusing, because when you go to see a play, you don’t expect the actors to talk directly to you, and this is what they did. They were acting as their characters not themselves but we weren’t to know this immediately. A man enters the stage, where an overhead projector is already on located to the side of the stage. We later find out this man was actually Graham’s father who was campaigning the issues of global warming. He is campaigning his argument out to the audience as if we were the audience of 1981 when this happened. The other two actors help out during this scene, and at first it doesn’t seem as if you were there to watch a play with a storyline, but to listen about the issues of climate change. This is how the main theme/big issue that is raised and to follow is the two parallel plotlines.
The whole performance is very visual, using different technologies to create different effects, even using different parts of their own bodies to create sounds, such as water dripping where one actor first used a glass by tapping it to create the sound, then continued the same effect but began using their arm to create a different dripping water effect. This happens again to create a deep cave diving effect as if we are actually watching and listening to the man doing it to using a simple microphone to create an ultrasound scene to bouncing a tennis ball to create the illusion that two people are playing squash against a wall.
The visual elements of the performance and the immediate story telling is what made this show an overall success, whilst also including a major issue that needs to be campaigned even around the world.