18 June – 13 July

Behind every agreement or disagreement there are stories to tell – political and personal. In this Good Chance/RSC collaborative political cliff-hanger, playwrights Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson have dissected the myriad diplomacies, the decision makers and the disrupters behind the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol at COP3 in 1997 – the first time industrial countries agreed to legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Protocol required ratification by at least 55 parties to the Convention, across national concerns ranging from life or death survival in the case of the island nations such as Kiribati, to anxieties about potential industrial and economic collapse in the US.

At the Swan Theatre, the stage is set like a convention in the round at which we, the audience, are encouraged to feel like delegates sitting behind actor reps from the US, China, Germany, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the UK and Kiribati, each with our own COP3 lanyard.

Standing astride this play is the character of Washington lawyer Donald Pearlman, who has become the go-to hatchet man for the so-called Climate Council, an NGO devoted to undermining evidence of climate change and preserving the profitability of fossil fuels. Stephen Kunken owns the role. A baddy you could argue, blinkered by his belief in the American Dream.

Pearlman is a formidable foe – a man who reads ALL the small print, a weasel looking for the killer bite – he has bought into the idea that environmentalists are basically ‘watermelons’ – green on the outside but red, ie communist, on the inside. And that Americans can just “figure it out, we always do”. Kunken’s quick-fire put-downs to wobbling fence-sitters and prompts to the more petro-friendly diplomats round the table are redolent of Peter Capaldi’s Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, but carry even more of a threat because of his absolute command of what is required to torpedo consensus. And his darkly humorous observations about the carbon footprint of the delegates also offered a hint of the conflict at the heart of the subject.

Murphy and Robertson paint Pearlman in high definition 3D. Through his wife, Shirley, played with complete conviction by the excellent Jenna Augen, we learn about his faltering relationship with his son Brad, who needs his dad in a way that he cannot fulfil. And in her final soliloquy, in which she muses on her husband’s human qualities, she provides a reminder that all the players here are merely flesh and blood, and are exacting a big personal cost for their roles.   

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Pearlman’s nemesis at COP3 is the refreshingly hopeful and determined Chair, Raúl Estada-Oyuela, played with easy charm and wit by Jorge Bosch. Estada-Oyuela takes inspiration from a portly Ferdy Roberts as UK/EU delegate John Prescott, who engenders a sense that only with the utmost tenacity and belief in finding agreement will the naysayers be denied.

Throughout, there is convincing support from Nancy Crane as the US delegate caught between wanting to drive a deal her Senate can pass, while riding embarrassingly roughshod over smaller nations’ concerns. Ingrid Oliver, as German delegate Angela Merkel has some of the most poignant lines when she reflects on the UK and Germany’s joint role at Europe’s top table, while Andrea Gatchalian is an impassioned advocate for the 50,000 Kiribatians threatened with the rising waters of a heating globe.

Directors Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin have injected great pace into the overall delivery here. The result is a razor-sharp production that never wilts. Even arguments over punctuation are as pacy as a game of snap. There is good use of back-projected footage from COP3 to further set the scene, and a delightful reference to a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Amazonian jungle – an act of cultural commonality that has the potential to lubricate acts of diplomacy.  The political pas-de-deux between Estada-Oyuela and Pearlman retains the suspense throughout. And even though we know the outcome will favour the Argentinian, the threat of Don Pearlman pervades like a Terminator. As we know, other ‘Pearlmans’ continue to hatch.

★★★★★ Simon Bishop 26 June 2024

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan