Content warnings: Frequent mentions of climate change, coarse language, sexual references, and use of strobe lighting.
Observatory Theatre has opened its 2023 season with a darkly funny political farce about the climate crisis, set in a collapsing world that feels closer every day.
Melbourne has flooded. The sea is rising. Eco-terrorists are on the airwaves, mobs are in the streets, and Sydney is hitting temperatures in the 50s. Written by Brisbane author Stephen Carleton, The Turquoise Elephant is set in the palatial home of the Macquarie family, overlooking Sydney Harbour.
Basra (Rebecca Day) is an idealist in an ivory tower, vlogging about the climate crisis from behind the triple glazed windows of her family home. Standing to inherit 10 billion dollars in generational wealth, she tells herself that she will make a difference, invest in renewables, and make things better. But Basra is being refused her inheritance, despite being a young woman in her twenties, by her grandmother Augusta (Sandra Harman). Macquarie matriarch and career politician, Augusta believes in the enduring power of fossil fuels, and her government is fighting to disprove the science of climate change.
Meanwhile, Augusta’s sister Olympia (played outlandishly by Amanda McErlean) has made a lifestyle of travelling to the ends of the earth to see the last polar bear, the falling of a glacier shelf, the submergence of the Sphinx, and more. But she’s doing her part for conservation: eating only endangered animals, in order to increase demand for them. On a recent jaunt, Olympia met Jeff (Robert Wainwright), a charlatan futurist who plans to build a self-sustaining utopia, New Eden, inland. He just needs some funding…
Into this tense and chaotic household comes Visi (Clarise Ooi), a new employee to clean and cook, and with a few secrets of her own.
Winner of the 2015 Griffin Award, The Turquoise Elephant was written in the lead up to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change that was signed in December of that year. In his programme note, playwright Stephen Carleton wrote that it was inspired by “the malodourous denialism wafting out of the Murdoch press at the time.” Despite being written almost ten years ago, the play didn’t feel dated – if anything, Carleton’s imagined apocalypse seems closer than ever before.
As well as the core themes around climate change denial and both institutional and individual inaction, The Turquoise Elephant is a commentary on wealth and class in modern Australia, as well as touching on racism and attitudes towards migration and refugees. The dichotomy between speaking and acting was raised repeatedly, on both sides.
Director Lachlan Driscoll leaned into the absurd elements of the play with hyperphysical staging, and movement or dance sequences in the more dramatic moments. Upbeat music, from Love Shack to the Macarena, contributed to the play’s energy and speedy pace, and clashed against the seriousness of the action in a way that highlighted the absurdity of the characters’ behaviour.
A cast of five actors delivered The Turquoise Elephant with energy and humour, from Visi’s scathing monologue and disbelieving glances at the audience, to Augusta’s declarations in German and Olympia’s exaggerated physicality. Robert Wainwright played the smooth-talking Jeff with a consistent American accent, and Rebecca Day brought Basra’s passions and doubts to the stage. I especially enjoyed how my perception of, and feelings toward, Basra were shifted throughout the play: initially the most sympathetic character, the audience sees a different side of her as the action escalates.
The Turquoise Elephant was performed in the warehouse-style space of Studio1 at Yeerongpilly, with a series of simple set pieces suggesting the minimalist Macquarie mansion. The news bulletins and threats from eco-terrorists The Cultural Front of Environmental Preservation were delivered via voiceover (by Kieran J Evans), although the audio distortion made some of the words difficult to discern. Lighting and sound design by Noah Milne were well-executed and appropriately dramatic.
The Turquoise Elephant ran for two hours, including an interval, but the time flew past. The metaphor of the play’s title was explained early, being also the title of Basra’s vlog, and both Augusta and Olympia continued to have thrilling and frightening visions of the creature throughout, suggested by changes in the lighting.
The Turquoise Elephant speaks with an urgency that has only accelerated in the decade since its writing; underlying the irony and absurdism is the bleak reality of rising temperatures and sea levels, catastrophic wildfires, increased displacement, melting ice caps, and a government that continues to fund fossil fuels. The key message of the play is not one of bland and unfocused hope, but an urgent call to action (or, to arms): not everyone has the resources to impact legislation or build infrastructure, but no one can afford to ignore the worsening state of our climate.
The Turquoise Elephant will be performed at Studio1, Yeerongpilly, from 2 – 11 June 2023
For ticketing and further information, visit the Observatory Theatre website
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