Extreme Weather
Opening Night: October 2, 2014
Closing: October 26, 2014
Theater: Theatre for the New City
Extreme Whether poses a bitter debate over the future of the planet but becomes a meditation on the sublime in nature. Written in a mix of prose and poetry, with invective, humor and a full musical score, Extreme Whether sets the battle over global warming within a single family as a challenge to the American family at this moment of ecological crisis. A major climate scientist, his colleague and lover, an Arctic scientist, wage fierce battle with his twin sister, a publicist for the energy industry, and her husband, a lobbyist, over scientific truth and an inherited wilderness estate. His wise-child daughter and her side-kick Uncle work to protect the natural world and sabotage its abusers.
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October 14, 2014
Dr. James E. Hansen was in the audience at a recent performance of Extreme Whether, a Theater Three Collaborative and Theater for the New City production. A NASA scientist for decades before his retirement, Dr. Hansen has been called the first man to speak the words “global warming” before members of Congress, in 1988, and the play’s protagonist was partly inspired by him. I didn’t stay for the talk with him, partly because I was afraid he might denounce the entire proceedings. Let’s hope this play, written and directed by Karen Malpede, doesn’t set back the fight against climate change another decade or two. Jeff McCarthy, a fine actor, plays John Bjornson, the noble and frustrated NASA climate scientist at the center of a family drama with larger consequences. Mr. McCarthy succeeds frequently in bringing his character to full, angry, textured life, but after two-and-a-half hours he is finally brought down by ludicrous dialogue and plot developments.
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