Sugar is sweet, although the ultimate message about climate change that David Finnigan delivers in his deceptively honeyed Deep History turns bitter. Even as the writer-performer casually talks to the audience during his 70-minute solo show, an hourglass-type prop situated on a table next to him dispenses a growing mound of sugar. Each grain of sugar, notes Finnegan, represents 100 humans and the resulting pile illustrates how Earth’s population has been increasing over the millennia.
Opening on Thursday in the 99-seat Shiva space at the Public Theater, Deep History initially registers more like an absorbing illustrated lecture than a dramatic performance, as Finnigan reflects upon the ways humanity has somehow survived ice ages, volcanoes, plagues and other natural catastrophes. Finnigan vows to be “optimistic and constructive and forward looking” about how to successfully face up to dangerous climate change. “Survival is possible,” he asserts, scrawling that phrase in magic marker on a sheet of brown paper pinned to a board. Finnigan later adds another note, “Not everyone will make it.”
Set up against black drapes and a large projection screen at the rear of the stage, one table holds the sugar dispenser and another supports a laptop PC by which the performer calls up images and videos for his discourse. A lean, stubble-bearded, bare-footed Australian in his early 40s, Finnigan explains that he is an artist who collaborates with climate and earth scientists on making events such as Deep History. The son of a mountaineering climate scientist, Finnigan intersperses his remarks with personal stories. Finnigan’s account of his best friend Jack’s escape with his wife and three kids from a massive wildfire in Australia lends urgency to the show as does an accompanying video. They also dramatize how in spite of deniers and their disinformation, climate change already has arrived.
To humanize the formal sections of Deep History, Finnigan lyrically evokes the spirit of a woman who experiences the half dozen epochal times that he considers to be critical turning points in survival, beginning some 75,000 years ago when our species nearly went extinct amid a desolate world of volcanic eruptions. As Finnigan recounts the everywoman’s struggles, sepia-tinted video designed by Hayley Egan and keening music composed by Reuben Ingall augment his words. Perhaps the most poignant among these several imaginative histories is the one tenderly describing a day 27,000 years ago, when the woman chances upon the dying last survivor of the Neanderthals, a coexisting species for many generations.
Unexpectedly, despite Finnigan’s optimistic assertions, he becomes increasingly agitated as his lecture continues. By the time an overflowing avalanche of sugar hits the floor, the man apparently breaks down in despair of being able to cope reasonably with disaster. (The play’s misleading structure recalls Lisa Kron’s solo works such as 2.5 Minute Ride in which a speaker loses control of the narrative.) Although an epilogue sees Finnigan’s composure partly restored, it is likely some viewers will remain unsettled, which no doubt is the artist’s intention. Staged with deliberately modest production values by Annette Mees and engagingly performed by Finnigan, Deep History is an assemblage of selective scientific fact, historical speculation, personal stories and seemingly spontaneous drama that suggests how even the most concerned people still are not ready to deal with the climate crisis.
Deep History opened October 10, 2024, at the Public Theater and runs through November 10. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
