This is What Utopia Looks Like – ShyBairn / Camden People’s Theatre, London

ShyBairn’s guided approach encourages participants to connect with their creative potential and overcome climate fatigue in This is What Utopia Looks Like.

This is What Utopia Looks Like

It’s not an installation.  It’s not what comes to mind when you think of theatre. (I’m guessing, at least).  It’s somewhere in between the two.  It’s about the climate emergency and the future.  And it needs you as a participating audience member to take shape.

This is What Utopia Looks Like was on at Camden People’s Theatre as part of The State We’re In Festival.  Its makers describe it as “a performance installation to imagine a liveable future.”  As an introvert I am not a natural theatre participator.  I love interactive theatre, don’t get me wrong.  But I love it when someone else does the interacting and I can appreciate it from a safe space nearby.  So I didn’t quite know what to expect from this format.  But rest assured, fellow introverts: it’s gentle enough that everyone can participate and feel comfortable.

In fact, the first part of the piece is about getting participants in the right frame of mind for a communal, creative space.  It’s a sort of guided meditation, encouraging us to think about ourselves, the world around us, and it’s interconnectedness.  With the foundation laid, we’re then encouraged through to the next stage.  Behind the gauzy curtain is a space to make our own, where we can listen, write, make, and do.  A final metaphor in which our guide Katherine Payne untangles a knot closes our short time together.

Heading

This is What Utopia Looks Like comes from a place of burnout.  I know that because it’s the first thing Payne told us.  I feel that: I find the climate emergency scary enough to keep me in a place of inaction most of the time.  But theatremakers are very good at finding ways to get their messages through.  One approach, seen here, is humour.  Another is to do it like this: create a safe space and break a big problem down into something smaller.  You probably can’t think of a way to stop climate change.  But you can show up, as we are exhorted to do, and take action little and often.  Even the act of imagining a future can be radical.  

Fringe theatre (or fringe performance installations) are a hotbed of creative ideas and experimentation.  This is an interesting example, and the team largely pull off what they set out to achieve.  As I said earlier, the visualisation at the beginning gets participants ready and open.  I wonder if they were hoping for more interaction amongst the audience: mine was more like parallel play.  But its subtlety was what worked for me.

If you’d like to try it out for yourself, you’ll have to wait a little. This two day run, and The State We’re In Festival, both ended on 10 November. In the meantime, remember to show up, and create change a little at a time.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5

This is What Utopia Looks Like was on at Camden People’s Theatre as part of The State We’re In until 10 November 2024 only.  For future dates, check ShyBairn’s website here.