David Finnigan
Showing at the Barbican, London, until 1 October
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As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about big things 鈥� black holes, distant galaxies 鈥� I thought I could get my head around large numbers. Or I did, until I sat in a packed venue at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and watched playwright David Finnigan pouring bucketloads of sugar onto a table as part of his new play, You鈥檙e Safe Til 2024: Deep History.
As the grains spilled out, each representing 100 people currently living on our planet, I was astonished. I had known the population had more than doubled in the past 50 years: the last time there were people on the moon, there were only 3.8 billion on Earth. But, while watching the play, I learned it is a very different thing to know a number than to know the meaning of that number.
You鈥檙e Safe Til 2024 is a long-term project in which Finnigan will release a new play exploring the changing world every year for six years. Deep History, the second part, is a one-man show in which Finnigan tells two stories at once.
He is in his London flat in December 2019, hearing news from back home in Australia about his loved ones caught up in the deadly wildfires that burned an unprecedented area of forest. At the same time, he looks at defining moments in Earth鈥檚 history when humans faced turning points, an idea originally dreamed up by his father, climate scientist John Finnigan.
In the play, from 75,000 years ago to 1943, Finnigan punctuates each key moment by placing grains of sugar, each representing 100 people, on the table 鈥� starting with a pinch, ending with buckets. Instead of describing the environment at each stage, Finnigan tells the story through the character of a woman he describes as curious, with a sense of humour that is always getting her into trouble.
鈥淚f you can see it through the eyes of a character,鈥� says Finnigan, 鈥渢hat helps imagine what it might have looked, smelled and tasted like to live through these moments of transformation.鈥�
He says his father鈥檚 research was key for the show, along with work by Earth system scientist Will Steffen. 鈥淓verything I do is in collaboration with researchers,鈥� he adds.
By simultaneously telling the story of his own experience, Finnigan leaves the audience with a clear message: we are currently living through another turning point.
There is no shortage of numbers about the climate crisis. The 5 million hectares of forest burned in Australia between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. The 33 million people affected by the recent floods in Pakistan. Science can help us understand the implications of these numbers, but art can bring them to life.
