Theatre in Review: Walden (Second Stage/Tony Kiser Theatre)

	Zoe Winters, Emmy Rossum. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The climate crisis has arrived -- witness this awful hurricane season, paired with balmy, seventy-eight-degree weather in New York this November week -- making it the topic of the moment in the New York theatre. It's an enormous issue, not easily dramatized: A global phenomenon unfolding (up to now) at an almost imperceptible rate, it often seems too large for the modest dimensions of the stage. And when playwrights try to imagine a dystopian future -- as in the current attractions Hothouse and In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot -- the results can be irritatingly vague. Even more difficult is the problem of generating drama from this immense, yet elusive, phenomenon.

Which is why Walden is such a heartening surprise: Amy Berryman's play, produced in the West End in 2021 and seen online in a version produced by TheaterWorks Hartford that same year, isn't perfect but it is the first in my experience to embed this all-important issue in a compelling dramatic situation. It offers a way forward to open a conversation we desperately need to have.

Berryman, drawing on current trends, convincingly paints a picture of life a few decades hence, when the air in urban areas requires the aid of breathing devices, mega-tsunamis wipe out millions living in coastal areas, and the number of refugees is so overwhelming that warlike conditions prevail. Bryan and Stella, engaged to be married, have retreated to a house in the wilderness. (Their charming cottage, designed by Matt Saunders, features a corrugated metal exterior with trees dotting the roof; inside, the look is Ikea-cozy.) Bryan is an Earth Advocate, one of a growing army of Thoreau-inspired back-to-the-land types, many getting by without electricity. Stella is an odd fit amid all this green thinking, being the daughter of a famous astronaut and an architect with an impressive career at NASA. She now works as a bartender.

Stella is on edge thanks to the impending visit of her twin sister Cassie, who, just back from a year on the Moon, is part of a program seeking to colonize other planets: Next up is Mars, using Stella's blueprint for a structure based on bio regenerative life support systems. Cassie notes, "It's a way for us to use renewable energy from plant life -- essentially creating our own ecosystem -- the plants supply us the oxygen and get rid of the CO2 in the air, we use our waste and water to give back to the plants." The only catch is the first twenty brave souls sent to establish the Mars colony are unlikely to ever return to Earth.

I don't want to spoil the rest of the play's twisty ninety minutes, but safe to say Cassie wants Stella back on the job. However, there's the festering issue of what drove the sisters apart, an event that caused Stella to brusquely dump her colleague and lover of eight years. Adding to the complications, Bryan and Stella are quietly haunted by a recent setback in their plans. Hanging over everything are the radically different paths taken by Bryan and Cassie -- he a part of a movement attempting to gradually reclaim the degraded environment and she allied with government technocrats to ditch what they see as an unsalvageable planet.

At first glance, Walden seems top-heavy with arguments, taking on more than its brief running time can handle; on reflection, Berryman lets nothing go to waste, packing a complicated backstory into the action; providing a strong drama center is the painfully unresolved interdependence between Cassie and Stella, which, if everything goes according to plan, will likely remain forever in a state of suspension. Whitney White's taut, fast-moving production doesn't miss a thing: She is especially good at staging the cross-talk -- constructed from piles of unfinished sentences -- that constitutes the sisters' way of communicating. The director stages any number of telling moments: Bryan, forlorn, holding party decorations that nobody wants; Cassie looking on uncomfortably as Bryan and Stella share a passionate kiss; a mimed sequence showing that Bryan and Stella's private paradise is hardly insulated from the whims of a changing climate.

As always, White has a perceptive casting eye. Emmy Rossum nails Stella's steelier qualities, for example, when her jealousy is fired by a news broadcast that refers to Cassie as "James Ryan's daughter," leaving herself unmentioned. "We have to act really happy!" she warns Bryan, who is bemused to think role-playing might be involved. When she finally admits why she fled her NASA career, the admission is almost physically wrenched from her. Zoe Winters zeroes in on Cassie's brashly derisive, unconsciously provocative, nature, whether brandishing a batch of 3D-printed candies (anathema to Bryan) or announcing, "The EA movement isn't what's going to save us, investing in a place far away is what will save us." But she also reveals Cassie's deep pride in having managed to grow plant life in the Moon's inhospitable atmosphere. And she plausibly lays bare Cassie's pain over her estrangement from Stella and her growing ambivalence about a mission with no return. As a bonus, the actresses look similar enough to be siblings in real life. Motell Foster's Bryan deftly balances these two sharp-edged personalities -- "You know what?" he says. "I'm just gonna take a big sip of my beer every time I want to talk politics" -- while taking time to mordantly denounce the Government's planetary colonization plans as a pointless boondoggle.

The director is also smart in her choices of designers. Saunders' attractive set is beautifully supported by Adam Honore's lighting, a subtler achievement than his more flamboyant recent work on Cats: "The Jellicle Ball" and Drag: The Musical. Queen Jean's costumes comfortably suit each character. Lee Kinney combines sensitive original music with highly evocative effects including a news broadcast, thunder, rain, and some alarmingly aggressive birdsong. All the design elements combine to flesh out Berryman's vision of life in the not-too-distant future.

It's not giving anything away to report that the play ends on an unresolved, almost teasing, note; this seems almost too appropriate to the moment we find ourselves in. But Walden succeeds where others struggle, criticizing the kick-the-can-down-the-road thinking that has been our way of dealing with this world-altering challenge. The climate crisis isn't going away; here's hoping more playwrights approach it with the lucidity displayed here. --David Barbour