Theatre / Scenes from the Climate Era, by David Finnigan, directed by Carissa Licciardello. A Belvoir Street Theatre Production. At  The Q, season closed. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

Opening night for this thought provoking series of short scenes about what humanity is doing to the planet was unfortunately cut short mid-run when a cast member was taken ill, but the second night saw a solid audience with returnees who wanted to see how this questioning epic was going to finish up. 

It’s an episodic piece played on a bare stage with just a few chairs and a table to start with. Then streams of what looks like sand start to fall and the stage becomes a textured battlefield as the planet succumbs to the unwise choices of its humans.

There are more questions than answers as the action ranges up and down a timeline that includes the immediate past and an increasingly threatening future. Will unwise environmental decisions result in death and destruction at the hands of a climate humanity has driven out of control?

Little vignettes and characters strike home. The man who is guarding the last frog of its kind. The squabbling decision makers failing to effect change. The wisdom of the indigenous fish trap system. The mother and daughter on the receiving end of unleashed alteration of the weather.

There’s humour, but it is edged with a pessimistic bleakness and questioning.

Violette Ayad, Nic English, Abbie-lee Lewis , Brittany Santariga and Ariadne Sgouros (standing in for Meg Hyeronimus) carry this questioning with power into an episodic theatrical form that pushes the audience to consider what is being done to the planet.

Expect adjectives: thrilling, frightening, thoughtful