Imagine how much you’d enjoy it if someone locked you in a dark room and lecturerd you for two hours and five minutes on climate change without an interval. Thanks to the National Theatre, you no longer have to imagine.
Written by “four of the country’s most exciting writers” – the programme is verbose on the subject of how much landfill was saved by printing on recycled paper (1,183.8kg) but surprisingly mute on which one exactly wrote what or how the process worked – Greenland follows a number of stories which are supposedly interweaving. It’s all too unremittingly tedious to recount in any sort of detail, but there’s something about a grumpy teenager, something about the Copenhagen talks and something about two brothers in Greenland watching birds. There’s also a lot of stuff about people who dance around under flashing lights as a form of protest.
A central theme of the play is that drafting of international treaties by committee is an imperfect process; but it also becomes quickly clear that cohesive plays also don’t benefit from having four writers involved. This play is, at its best, a jumbled mess of preaching indignation.
At worst it fails to be a play at all. There might be a few nice audition pieces in here, but I encountered not a single believable character or action, not a single plot strand I cared about the conclusion of and not a single line of consequential dialogue that sounded like it might plausibly ever come out of the mouth of a human being.
This play is in many ways a lot like last year’s Earthquakes in London, and not just because they’re both addressing the issue of climate change: the large cast, intersecting plot lines and attempts at epic status are all similar. But it’s difficult to imagine two pays less similar in how effective they are: Earthquakes was a moving human drama first and far fetched future threat parable second; Greenland lacks humanity because it has no characters that feel real and lacks drama because we don’t care about any of them.
Greenland is about the man-made catastrophe of climate change, but as a play it is nothing short of a catastrophe itself (notwithstanding this being a first preview), and a man-made one at that. Someone at the National Theatre should have looked away from it being a cute idea and ‘on message’, read the script and concluded it just wouldn’t work.
But that wasn’t what they did. And that they didn’t leads on to the most curious thing about watching Greenland. Because bless the National, but once they decide to do something they don’t do it by halves. Despite its obvious flaws, despite it being a vapid and disjointed play, despite it being broken, Greenland has obviously been lavished with love. And the staging of turns out to be absolutely superb.
I don’t know whether to attribute it to Bijan Sheibani’s direction or Bunny Christie’s design, but somebody has sat down – like a loving mother blind to her offspring’s flaws – and worked out how to do right by this play. The result is actually rather spectacular. I saw here visual effects which, by themselves, are hardly unprecedented but which when put together into one production become something of a tour de force. None of it works really, because it feels disjointed and the play doesn’t carry it, but as a proof of concept of what the National Theatre is capable of in technical terms it’s unparalleled. Scarcely a moment goes by without something falling from the ceiling or descending into the floor, a character being hoisted to the rafters, fire emerging from the stage or a magical puppet commanding the stage. This technical aplomb was particularly impressive given that this was a first preview.
Of course a production cannot claim victory on style and technical finesse alone, now matter how impressive the capabilities of the Lyttelton. The most important part of a theatremaker’s job is to present compelling characters behaving in human ways on stage. In the end it is that, rather than bells or whistles, that lend theatre its power – power which is absent in Greenland.
Sounds like my decision not to touch this with a barge pole were justified.
I was going to go with Ian and backed out. Suddenly this seems like a move of genius. I hope the National gives up on doing plays on a theme and gets back to doing plays that are interesting.
Hmm, I think you are being a little harsh on it. This is indeed deeply flawed, but I found the thread with the politician and the scientist to be quite involving and their relationship was something that I did care about. Small comfort I know but we take what we must… Also, I do think that you need to mention that this was a first preview.
Where did you go afterwards? You were but seats away from the Whingers and a few more away from us but you disappeared by the end and missed out on what was practically a lock-in the bar!
Yes, fair cop – added in two references to it being a preview. Although unless they rewrite I can’t see this moving the needle too much…
‘Greenland’ is one of those productions one needs to will towards its potential. To do that requires not only the will, but, yes the staying power. So, essentially believing that what the dear old National was trying to do here is REALLY IMPORTANT, I returned for the following two previews. And I felt rewarded. Unless he’s changed his mind, Alan Ayckbourn, playing in rep in the Lyttelton, is on record [The Crafy Art of Playmaking] that global warming is a no-go subject for dramatisation. ‘Earthquakes over London’ did indeed defy that maxim, setting a standard, much as ‘Waves’ did for video-filmed theatre.
If ‘Greenland’ has lessons, they may be elusive, as slippery as the ever-changing facts, forecasts, technology and politics of climate change. One answer might be stories that pick up on climate change for, by jove, there are enough tragic and heroic stories piling in from round the globe of human dramas beyond the reach of insurance. I suspect the NT will view this as a learning piece, a scaled-up experiment one up from the Cottesloe.
Completely agree, I’m afraid. Except for your generosity towards the staging. After the spectacular start, which really was genuinely beautiful, I found myself thinking, ‘if one more thing falls from that bloody ceiling…’ and that was about twenty minutes in. Needless to say to anyone who’s seen it, they’re only warming up by that stage. I thought it distracted horribly, didn’t support what (little) substance there was in the dialogue, and made me feel somewhat dizzy.
Wish I had anything positive to say. It just felt like a terrible mess.
Disheartening mess except for the polar bear episode which was wonderfully set up and the last image of that splendid white globe illuminating the stage if not the text. For most of it yackety yackety yak. No wonder there was no interval. A captive audience was needed. It’s what Sunday school must have been. Since when do you check your watch at regular intervals at the NT? Still some actors must be remarkably fit by now. What about us?
this is qiute an immature response to a national theatre play, id quite like to see what YOU chould create! most likely would be trash. i have actually seen greenland and i found it very long and tiring, however the information given was good and very informing. for example at the end of the play having the bright light turned upon the audience and all of the paper falling onto the audience it asked a question to us, which i believe was the point of the play, as if to ask.. well.. are you doing your part to help? because in all truthness the world will not last forever! and our own actions do appear to have caused this process to progress a lot faster. therefore i believe that a play attempting to bring light upon the issues about climate change is very sensible and a very good plea in order to ‘ask’ US ourselves to try to help in our own ways. i see my friends litter and ask them not to and find them saying ‘whats one little bottle going to do? im only one person’ but this is wrong, and people need to realise that even if you feel your contributions to helping maybe very small and insignificant, it can still make a difference. you clearly do not value the values of this play and are clearly very self absorbed. but i know you are wrong and are a very ‘up themselves’ person.
also, seems to me only upper class/middle class gits were in the audience. you people make me so angry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Howdy! I realize this is kind of off-topic however I needed to ask.
Does running a well-established blog like yours require a large amount of work?
I’m brand new to writing a blog but I do write in my diary on a daily basis.
I’d like to start a blog so I can share my own experience and
views online. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or tips
for new aspiring blog owners. Appreciate it!