Theatre in Review: Kyoto (Lincoln Center Theater/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater) Kyoto, now commanding the Newhouse stage with uncommon fire, is the type of production that makes Lincoln Center Theater indispensable -- a sweeping, large-canvas drama about contemporary political history. (Other recent examples at LCT include Corruption, about the phone-hacking scandal that threatened Rupert Murdoch's empire, and Oslo, about the intense maneuvering around the historic Oslo Accords.) Plays like these are often developed through the good offices of British not-for-profits such as the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, and the Almeida Theatre, which have the resources to work at scale; Kyoto comes from RSC and the theatre company Good Chance. LCT is the rare New York venue that can handle work on this scale. In Kyoto, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, authors of The Jungle -- a gripping, sobering drama about a global refugee camp in Calais, seen at St. Ann's Warehouse in 2018 -- take on the Kyoto Protocol, the global push to limit climate change-causing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's an intensive, often angry account of bickering, politicking, and deal-making, unfolding across a ten-year time frame. Under the furiously fast direction of Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, aided by a crack team of character actors led by Stephen Kunken as the Iago-like central figure, Kyoto is driven by a propulsive energy and clarity of vision that makes it impossible to look away. Kunken is Don Pearlman, the real-life American oil industry lobbyist who serves as our accurate, yet ideologically unreliable, narrator, keeping tabs on each chess move while proselytizing for an America First ideology. The child of Holocaust survivors, he is, like many neoconservatives in the Reagan-Bush era, utterly convinced that the fall of the Berlin Wall has ushered in a Pax Americana that essentially marks (in Francis Fukuyama's famous phrase) the end of history. When the UN establishes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he is drafted by big-oil interests (a creepy Greek chorus known as "the seven sisters") to thwart the effort. Pearlman, convinced that any substantial climate agreement will privilege developing countries and land the US in a recession (or worse), takes up the cause with gusto. Turning up at forums around the world, where attempts at hammering out an agreement get tangled up in competing national goals, procedural snafus, and syntactical free-for-alls, Pearlman is a master at thwarting progress. Beginning as an informal adviser to the Saudi Arabian delegation and later appearing as the head of a dubious NGO called The Climate Council, he pulls every possible string, slipping instructions to sympathetic delegates, spreading calumnies to stir up national rivalries, and making use of any political lever at his disposal. The action moves into high gear as the delegates ricochet from city to city, fighting to achieve a workable plan. (In one of Kyoto's most scathing passages, Pearlman adds up the total amount of carbon dioxide expended by these busy globetrotters.) Miriam Buether's cunning set design features a circular table, accommodating both actors and audience members, backed by a giant blow-through video screen that designer Akila Krishnan fills with images of various conference venues, PowerPoint presentations, and updates on where and when the action is taking place. The design, including Natalie Pryce's costumes, Aideen Malone's lighting, and Christopher Reid's sound, is clean, uncluttered, and utterly in the service of the drama. (Hang on for a falling chandelier effect that puts The Phantom of the Opera to shame.) Kunken, wheedling, whispering, wisecracking, and ruthlessly bending the truth, is his own perpetual motion machine, driving away his loved ones and exhausting himself mentally and physically in pursuit of American supremacy. "All great civilizations want to win, and then they fall when they begin to doubt whether it's 'right' to win," he says. "We cannot doubt America, America cannot doubt itself." The actor, in the performance of his career so far, seizes the stage, daring us to hate him as he hatches his latest schemes, proudly ticking off his list of derailing tactics, and cheerfully admitting, "Saving the earth is a filthy business." Well, he ought to know. Kunken is surrounded by an expert supporting cast of wheeler-dealers: Peter Bradbury, satanically bearded as Fred Singer, the notoriously skeptical environmental scientist; Kate Burton as the ruthlessly pragmatic American delegate; Erin Darke as Angela Merkel, coolly trying to kneecap Pearlman with an expose in Der Spiegel; Roslyn Ruff as the Tanzanian delegate, elegantly totting up the sins of the West; Taiana Tully as the delegate from Pacific Island of Kiribati, organizing small and developing countries into a powerful voting bloc; Natalie Gold as Pearlman's wife, Shirley, fighting the creeping suspicion that her beloved spouse is another Machiavelli; and Daniel Jenkins as a crusading journal stoking Shirley's worst fears. Stealing scene after scene is Jorge Bosch as Raul Estrada-Oyulea, an Argentine diplomat who, serving as chairman of the Kyoto conference, is bent on getting an agreement, either via jokes and gentle persuasion, or, if necessary, locking down the conference, creating a virtual hostage situation. It's a riveting spectacle, with the world potentially hanging in the balance, fueled by, in Pearlman's words, "a tidal wave of resentments, old and new:" African countries scarred by the legacy of colonialism, island nations enraged at the world's indifference to their existential plight; Arab states terrified at the loss of oil income; and China, which won't be deterred in its pursuit of superpower status. As the Tanzanian delegate insists, "The developed world must make discernible reparations for the damage it has caused." Against this, Pearlman insists, "What they're deciding in those rooms is a direct challenge to the idea of America. To American freedom. Well, sometimes freedom means war." It's a war that ends in a draw. To be sure,Kyoto is clear-eyed about the ultimate failure of the climate process, which the US has chosen not to honor. The authors cannily contrast the partial success of the conference's pledge of cooperation, a small miracle at the time, with the current state of the world, riven by disputes both petty and monumental. But the story isn't over: They argue, with undeniable force and vitality, that we must swim together or we will all drown separately. And we'd better hurry up about it, because the waters are rising. --David Barbour 
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