TWO HUMANS AND AN OTTER
New show combines science fiction and puppetry to tell the story of our extinction
It’s Last Days. The planet’s two remaining living humans cling to life in a research facility retrofitted to keep them alive. Their only other companion is Ami, the last otter on Earth.
This forms the backbone of A Brief History of Human Extinction.
Originally titled Rate of Loss, the unique new show from Upintheair Theatre was created by Jordan Hall and puppet company Mind of a Snail. The show is directed by Tamara McCarthy and stars Lisa Cooke Ravensbergen, Daniel Martin and the aforementioned Otter puppet crafted by Stephanie Legersma.
The story is set 160 years in the future.
The concept originated in 2015. “Upintheair was looking for a playwright-in-residence and I was interested in the Anthropocene mass extinction, so I submitted a massive first draft with interweaving time frames and we did a reading,” Hall said.
“Mind of a Snail were invited and checked it out and were interested, but with conditions.”
Specifically, Mind of a Snail’s Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel didn’t want their cutting-edge conceptual puppetry to be layered on top of the storyline, but instead to be seamlessly part of the piece. Ziner says that meant a significant reworking of the “awesome” original work.
“We really like the puppetry being integrated into the action, so for the past two years we have been working to interweave the puppetry into the action to arrive at this interwoven multimedia spectacle play,” Ziner said. “It’s kind of like a graphic novel come to life with the imagery and the story.”
Call it what you like, Hall and Mind of a Snail both agree there is a thing happening in storytelling at the moment where a lot of theatrical traditions are being jettisoned in favour of this sort of wide-reaching multimedia fusion. Perhaps a more immersive and less hierarchical model of stagecraft suits how the living-in-a-phonescreen age has altered our viewing habits.
“Moving away from really linear storytelling and into this more collaborative and imagistic approach does seem to be where we are going with telling these kinds of eco-stories,” Hall said. “One of the things that was consistent right from the start of the story was the otter. Difficult as it might prove, it just refused to leave the play.”
Ziner says Mind of a Snail usually works together creating with
a very devised process, whereas the rest of the creators are used to more straightforward work.
“Mind of a Snail likes to focus on the non-human actors a lot of the time, so it’s the journey of a worm who gets eaten by a crow and so on, to tell something,” Ziner said.
“Jordan’s original script was a lot more human-centred than that, so we came on as puppet dramaturges to question parts of that narrative and this led to the development of the character we’re playing.”
At the request of the performers, what or who that character is can’t be divulged. Let’s just say I really hope it gets nominated for a Jessie award, as the acceptance speech could be pure genius.
There is no doubt the collaborators are deeply invested in their production, which runs approximately two hours. While this can take them down a rabbit hole of theory and concept, what does the paying customer get when the lights go down?
“In addition to that adorable otter puppet, you are going to get a sci-fi comic thriller about the last adventure that anyone will ever have,” Hall said.
“Yes, I rehearsed that a few times.”
As to whether science fiction is becoming more of a thing in theatre, Ziner thinks it’s a way of addressing contemporary topics with immediacy.
“The best science fiction theatre has come from the imagination, but has reality firmly embedded in it,” she said.
“It leaves you with the clear feeling that this is actually really happening right now, that this vastness of destruction is real and that the best thing we can do is find ways to adapt. We need to be able to find ways to play in it too, right?”
Moving away from the tired cautionary tale of a dystopian reality where you are hunkered down in a bomb shelter waiting to draw straws to see who eats who first, A Brief History of Human Extinction is seeking out new territory. Ziner laughingly calls the result “delightful horror.”
The creators promise the show will be unlike anything either group has ever done, and both give a shout-out to director McCarthy for being so adept at developing a “community of trust” that was needed to come up with the final presentation.