You may have noticed that the climate crisis has been a hot (sorry) topic of conversation this summer. With large swathes of the UK hit by 40-degree temperatures and wildfires raging on our doorsteps, the threat to the planet has been impossible to ignore. And as with any threat to humanity, artists inevitably make art about it, in a bid to fathom the unfathomable and perhaps even bring about some change.
The Trials, from award-winning playwright Dawn King at the Donmar Warehouse, is a courtroom drama with a difference. The development process engaged 1,372 young people through community outreach – eventually whittling them down to an energetic cast of 12, many of whom are making their stage debuts.
The premise is intriguing and dramatically rich: in a not-so-distant dystopia in the throes of climate disaster, retroactive laws about individual carbon limits and economic barriers have been imposed, leaving most ‘normal’ people open to blame and punishment.
We meet three such people on trial (Lucy Cohu, Nigel Lindsay and Sharon Small in brief but powerful stints) who deliver grovelling speeches explaining their behaviours in the run-up to climate breakdown. These behaviours range in moral dubiousness from having three kids, to eating dairy, to owning two cars, to working for an oil company.
The jury of 12 young people are given the task of holding them accountable, ferociously butting heads over whether the adult in question should be found guilty or not. They fan themselves in a too-hot room with poor ‘climate control’, but can’t crack a window for fear of the thick, asthma-inducing smog outside. The mention of heat feels timely, bolstered by the visual of Cohu dripping in sweat as she delivers her desperate defence. We’re reminded that this is happening right here, right now.
These uber-woke kids on the jury are a Tory’s nightmare – they share their pronouns by default, they preach veganism, and they refer to the older generations as dinosaurs (admittedly, that joke grows stale pretty quickly). While they’re hashing it out, we hear every possible philosophical, economical, practical, and emotional argument for and against the notion of individual climate responsibility.
The young performers form a sturdy, impassioned ensemble and are well guided under Natalie Abrahami’s direction, but the debate-heavy, story-light format grows tiresome. The problem with plays about the climate – and anything issue-based – is that it can begin to feel like a lecture if there isn’t a human story at the heart to cling to. The Trials does introduce that emotive story, but too late for us to get invested.
King’s writing comes to life best when illuminating the small, daily impacts of the climate crisis on the jurors – one boy admits to missing the taste of bacon since it was made illegal; a young woman shares how she is bulled in the playground thanks to her parents’ planet-harming jobs.
Nevertheless, I’m left wondering what the impact of a play such as this can be, when preaching to an audience who’d probably describe themselves as already converted. There’s activism at the play’s roots, but those roots might need broader pastures to grow.
