 All right. Welcome, everyone, to this panel discussion after the play. All right. Welcome, everyone, to this panel discussion after the play 999. My name is Peter Wieg. I'm from Budapest, Hungary. I am going to moderate this panel discussion. I am leading a Climate Action Awareness Raising project in Hungary, titled Marshfield, which literally translates to 1.5 degrees Celsius. First and foremost, I would like to thank you, the organizers, howl around for this opportunity for showing the play and having us here for this discussion. But before I introduce our panelists, I would like to encourage everybody to participate with questions or remarks in the chat. We will be happy to answer them. We are planning this panel discussion for about 40 minutes. So, as for our distinguished guest, I would like to welcome Marcel Beilai, who is the founder and artistic director of The Chance of the Hunter Ensemble, co-director of the performance, and he's also a freelance director. Marcel, hello. Hi, everyone. Thank you for coming. And I would also like to welcome Gabor Viktor Kozma, who is also the founder, co-artistic director of The Chance of the Hunter Ensemble, director of the performance, what we just saw. He also holds a PhD and assistant teacher at the University of Bavaria. Welcome. Hello, everybody. Thank you, Peter. And just before I jump into the questions, nowadays experts fancy the word polycrisis that we live in the time of polycrisis. We have simultaneously many crises all around the globe. Just think about the energy crisis, the cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine. We have our domestic crisis in both sides of the Atlantic and globally. And as a dome above it all, we have the ecological and climate crisis. And I just want to emphasize that the IPCC, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released its synthesis report in March, summarizing the best available scientific knowledge about climate change. And I just want to share my screen for that. Just a second. Can you all see my screen? Yes. I urge everyone, if you want to look into the science, the scientific part of the story, you should hit up the IPCC report. And I just want to show one figure from the summary for policymakers. You can see here all the risks connected to climate change from water scarcity, infectious diseases, the degradation of crops and yields, etc., etc. What I really want to show you is this part of the graph, which tells the story that what we saw in the play could become somewhat of a reality if we follow the business as usual scenario and don't turn down global heating until the end of the century. And the thing is that the babies that were born and are born in these years are going to experience the full effects of climate change and the climate crisis during their whole period of their lives. Just think about Betty shown in the play previously. And the problem is that the science is crystal clear for a long time about climate change. We know that we are causing it. We know the risks and we also have the solutions at hand to do something about it. The thing is that we are not doing enough and not fast enough. And that creates a very vague, scary future for all of us filled with anxiety. And I think that maybe later in the discussion we can talk about climate anxiety. But my first question would be to you guys is that, okay, I'm just going to stop the sharing now. So the first question would be that climate science and climate change itself is a more solution-oriented, didactic approach while art and especially theater is about problem-centric, leaving questions open, not solving them. Why did you choose this topic? Wasn't it dangerous to choose this kind of let's say boring topic for a play? Well, first of all, I think the topic isn't boring at all. It's really inspiring. It's full of questions in it which artistically can inspire I think anybody and definitely inspired us. But yeah, we faced it with the beginning when we tried to get closer to the topic, closer to the subject, especially in a device yet away. So we needed to devise all the materials we use during the performance. It was my idea to come up with this kind of performance, but I felt from the beginning with Morzell and with the director Christian Kility and with the costume and set designer Ruzhanno Souke and with the music composer Marc Pasteur, we were thinking collectively from the beginning how should we form it to a theater subject, not to activism, not to solution-oriented topic. And there was a clear moment I think when we find the sentence. It sounded like this that for the future, mankind or humankind burns their own future. So owning the things and there's a kind of greed in it also, but somehow it's really out of love, out of mankind or humankind would like to do the best for their children, for the next generations, so they start to gain more and more through this process. Just one quick question. So this is not activism. You wouldn't say that this display has anything to do with climate activism? I wouldn't say, no. Yes? Yeah, I'm just thinking about that. In my dictionary, activism is that means you are for something, protest for something or yes, protest for something. But in this case, in our show, we just try to show some people's life in the future, how we think about it based on the articles which we were reading about. So I think there is a difference between activism and to show or represent something or let those characters to represent them. Yes, so basically we find it that in the center of the topic there is the human being who would like to do the best, but because of this intention immediately works against her or himself, we found it really absurd. We found it humorous at the point. So I think there's a great sense of humor in this topic, even if it's like a grotesque humor. But on the daily basis, yeah, we would like to continue our life. We don't want to have disasters in our life. We would like to avoid them, of course, but through working against it or through working for a better life, we burn our better life. And yeah, this was our basic core idea. And how was the creative process? So we found this topic, you deemed it interesting. How was the creative process making, putting climate change on stage? First of all, we did the research. As Marta mentioned, we started to read about the topic as much as we could. It was back in 2019. So it was one IPCC report before, after the 18th one, it started to be for me a really personal theme. And we started to speak with people from the field. We had a discussion with Greenpeace Hungary. They shared some material with us. They supported us with great care throughout the process. And then we started to come up with little scenes, little ideas, and we started to devise it with the actors together. So basically, we started to ask them and we started to suggest them different kind of improvisational situations. And we trained together through viewpoints also. And through this process, we found some materials. And then later on, we started to find a structure for it, find our main character, Donald Tamburo for it, and piece by piece. I think there's at a point it was like four hours long reading materials. So we really needed more than 120 pages. Yeah, I needed to cut up. Gabor, if you mentioned the viewpoints improvisation technique, maybe can you say just two, three sentences about that to make it clear what that is? Wow, sure. Sorry, because I just wanted to, I think that's the most interesting thing in this process. Viewpoints is not like really a technique. They mention it basically as a philosophy originated by Mary Overly. And later on, it was transformed by Anne Bogart and Tina Lando. It's basically decompose the theater materials around us. So maybe it's easier to explain it like this. If we would have a glasses in which we can put different filters, then you can layer the different reality around you. So for example, now I'm only focusing on the forms in the room. And then through forms, I find my solutions in my improvisation. And there are different viewpoints in the six or in the nine vocabulary to follow. So would you say that you started off with sketches, because we can see many stories in one play, like I don't know, at least four or more. I lost count. I lost count how many stories are simultaneously happening. So you started working on one, then the other came, and then you just mixed it up and tried to combine it into one play. The basic core of the scenes, I think, is need and fear. So this was a thought which connects all the scenes. Fear of not having a child. Fear of losing my love. And I cannot go out because of the obstacles, of the weather obstacles. The fear of how will I lose the purpose of my life, for example, for Donald Tamburo. So there is a lot of fears in it and a lot of anxiety. Yeah, basically we follow the subject, I think. So through the different topics we felt charged or inspired by, we created the scenes one by one. When we had the scenes, we needed to choose which material would we like to develop more, which material would we like to cut out, and then at the point we found our main corrector, which helped us to somehow compose it to not a linear narrative, but more like, how can I say it in English? To give a structure for it? Yes, but how would you explain the dramaturge of it? It's like not separated scenes, but it has a character thing. It has a frame narrative around it, which holds it together. But basically the idea that it happens in Donald Tamburo's head just before a precision of hibernation. And I had the chance to see the play in November 2021, and I couldn't notice that I saw a different play playing here, which will be available in the archive later on. So if anybody wants to watch it, it will be available. Can you outline the differences between the play that we just saw and the play that is currently existing and your showcasing? Marta? I think in the second version of this performance, as Gabor mentioned, the frame dramaturgy, I think it's more clear, it's much more clear than before. And I think we cut out some scenes to make it shorter and make it tougher. And I think the end of the show has much more anxiety, maybe, in the second version in the first, but maybe it's just my opinion. Yeah, I think we cut it out only parts of the scenes, not whole scenes. Yeah. And the cast changed through the years. The beginning and the end changed drastically. So for example, the first recorded voice or the recorded text is at the end of the performance now, and we have the smooth opening for the performance. So it's like a countdown until 999 from around 980, 985, it depends on the house we play in. So the audience is coming to accounting, like in a waiting room. And then when it's 999, the light changes and there's no party in the beginning, there's just the first two characters appearing, like if Donald Tamburo would fall asleep. I think we centralized more scenes on or around Donald Tamburo. So for example, we have the advertising scene with the guy with the really blonde hair who is selling bunkers. The tele-shop scene is not alone with a mess now but with Donald Tamburo. And the ending is... Well, that's a much more condensed scene now. So it's really just about if this guy, Donald, would make his decision to leave everything behind and wait for a better future or not, but he makes the decision and it leaves. And then we hear this recorded text basically about selfishness or ego, which I think is one of the main drive also behind all the subjects we try to cover. So you all around labeled the play as an apocalyptic dark comedy. And you guys also mentioned that when you were diving into the topic, you searched for tools to use the power of humor and sarcasm, even if it's grotesque. So do you consider this as a comedy? If I want to tell my friends that, hey, you should watch this comedy. Would you agree with that? Because if I would say this is a comedy about climate change and I think that many people who know something about the topic would go like, what? What's so funny about climate change? It's doom and gloom everywhere. So you consider this a comedy? Yes, I think we would consider it not in a classical sense for comedy but more like a grotesque sense of apocalyptic dark comedy. It's a genre. But basically this title or tag like apocalyptic dark comedy came from Voila Festival. They suggested for us and we really liked it because it also brings in the grotesque or absurd way and the humor. There is humor in it if we see humor as an empathetic or quality, maybe quality. Because when we see people struggling for something but at the same time making everything wrong with it, there is a kind of loving humor in it, I think. What do you think? Yeah, I can totally agree with it. Most of the scenes we can see how people try to prepare for the apocalypse and it's an impossible thing or how they try to manage their life in this apocalyptic circumstances. Of course they are failing and yeah, whereas if it's not a comedy. Also one of the humorous part in it which is also scary that none of the scenes are fully fictional. So basically I think none of them are fictional. There is real stories, real brochures behind it. So for example, we were shocked when we find brochures for a different kind of disaster bunker. I wanted to elaborate because I'm looking forward to my bunker if I retire in two years. You can order it in any model you would like. So how you're ordering a car now? If you would like to order a car, of course. Just the same structure, just the same images, just the same logic to sell it to you. So consumer society covers everything which is already, I think, absurd. This means I can get a cheaper bunker from China? Probably. Well, just don't try it out, please, Peter. Sorry about that. I'm terrible with jokes. I loved what she said that humor requires at least some amount of empathy. I really like that and I can reflect to it that many people say that irony reflects a higher level of intelligence. But about humor, let's talk about humor and climate change and how it can be or should be adapted to stage. Do you think that it can be counterproductive to use a humorous tone about this whole topic or this is some kind of therapy session for human beings to deal with this issue which is terrifying and seemingly unsolvable, which is, of course, not true according to the best available science, but we feel like that it's overwhelming in our lives. So did you choose this tone of humor, this dark, apocalyptic humor intentionally or it just came naturally how you closed on to the subject of climate, adapting climate change to stage? As far as I remember it was a choice, but I think it's also a language how we form our place. So I personally believe that even in the deepest dramas in the history, like written dramas, there is a great sense of humor. Just look at Shakespeare. So there always should be, I think, to find release, to not to be suffocated by the subject but to reflect on the subject. Humor is a great way to step out, take distance from the subject and then getting back closer emotionally. How do you remember, Marten? Yeah, I think humor, one-handed, but on the other hand, humor comes pretty naturally during the process because when we read articles, when we had discussions about this topic, we, as I remember, we felt a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety and that's the way how we try to manage it in our inner selves, you know? So on the other hand, it comes pretty naturally, as I mentioned. But what you asked before, that's the humor, Peter, the humor can be counterproductive, I think yes, because when we have the tension about this topic in ourselves and when we have this, to see a scene from the performance and then we laugh, the tension goes out in one hand, but I think if we would like to do something, be a productive person, I think we have to manage this tension. So on the other hand, yes, humor can bring you in a statement where you can start to be productive because you feel yourself more easier without tension. So basically, if we want to have effective climate action, we shouldn't be creating memes but go out and protest and do something about it. But as for stage play, it's a much more better way to make it more in a creative way, exciting in an artistic way because you just can go out to the stage and there's a problem, do something about it because then it's not real art, it's not art. No, I think it's not art and this is different purposes. Activism should make change somehow in society, somehow in global or social issues and theater should find some... Questions. Wow, questions. First of all, I would be more sentimental in this case, like more food for the soul. It's a great big word but somehow, yes, somehow find the emotional and mental... Yeah, it's more like an emotional and mental space theater for me to think together, to feel together, to be together, to share space and time together. To be out there and do activism, it's not about share space and time, it's not about the quality of the time, it's about the aim of the time. We would like to reach that. If we reach where successful, if we fail, we at least try. In theater, there's no win or lose. We can be together and find some self-growth in it through it, hopefully. Thank you. I just put an article from The Guardian in the chat on the Hall-Round platform which actually states that humor can be useful for climate action as well, just because you mentioned it relieves tension and brings the topic to those people, those parts of society that would avoid it if it would use the same tone like the blue man doom, which is of course still true but it's overwhelming. So actually humor can be also helpful for climate action as well. And if some of the viewers know the juice media on YouTube, I highly recommend check it out. They are roasting the Australian government all the time in a very funny way and also informative way. So there are many ways to approach such a subject that I want to get to climate anxiety because we mentioned tensions and how this tone can be useful like relieving this kind of tensions. We can see that climate anxiety is not some luxury hobby of an East Coast American or someone living in a Budapest upper class, but it's actually a growing thing globally which affects people even their growing number amongst young people who don't want to have children because of climate anxiety. They feel that they cannot provide a safe future for their children which is like, we never seen this before. I mean people had babies during the Cold War even during the Second World War so this is something that we have never experienced as a race before. And my question would be that you said that when you were looking into the topic and you did your research which is by the way excellent I think that this is a very good approach to see the science to see the numbers what is really going to happen and then start the creative process. So you mentioned anxiety. How did you feel when you encountered this horrible future scenario and how did it affect the play itself and do you have any strategies in your own life when you want to combat climate anxiety? Well, shortly bad basically it came from also the choosing the topic was a selfish decision because we or I already felt this kind of anxiety and there is a question always what can I do? You can do activism. Great. Do I see any effect? No. I can do my own changes in my life. I can reduce meat eating I can be more careful about my habits what do I buy I can be more aware how do I travel and so on. So there are some small steps which makes me still shit or shitty. So then came the last idea that okay I'm a theater artist I should do something with the topic so it's also a selfish decision how to handle the topic speak about it, speak through the topic about the problems about the questions raise awareness at least for few people I think theater is not the best way to raise awareness. I think movies, films, even social media is much better you reach few people you can share your anxiety with few people and emotions inspire great decisions. Basically as human beings we decide three emotions so at least we can do that. Just a quick question and Marcel I'm also interested in your answer as well but just a quick question did your play triggered a discussion in the artistic community or in the theater community in Hungary or in Europe where he went and played 999 triggered a discussion about climate change itself that what did you tell you anything about that this was a great idea or this was a bad idea to put on the stage did it move people that wow these guys came up with a play that actually puts the climate crisis in focus or not. Marcel? Well when we went to London with this performance after the show there was also kind of a panel discussion with the audience and there if I remember well they were kind of excited after the show that they have the opportunity to talk about this topic based on a theater show in Hungary I didn't participate in the panel discussion after the show so I don't know what was the reaction there but in the theater community I do not remember if other companies try to manage with this topic Gabor? Yes there are some piece about the subject K2 had an opera about it which also went to the London festival a year before us or two years before us there are some dance performances I think Ludo Eva did a dance performance about climate crisis and the Lederhardt company Lederhardt company just made a device piece last year so yeah only the independent companies Yes, that's true It's an interesting thing Yeah I think the theater especially in Central Eastern Europe is still like an independent company but more and more state theaters or repertor theaters opening up as far as I see but the topic appears it's not just we found out there are artists who are thinking and feeling similar like us and working on these but I still feel this subject is way too low represented not just in theaters but also in general talking but when I speak with youngster teenagers we have drama class in Budapest they feel this really really as one of the most urgent topic for themselves so as far as I see we should work as a community and as a theater community or as global community to raise more awareness to this And just to circle back because Marcella I also want to hear your anxiety attacks about the topic How did you feel, how did you react when you encountered this amount of information and how did you channel it into the play Actually I feel myself in a very unfortunate situation I think Gabor and me we are making theater and it's a pretty good situation to manage our tensions, our anxiety because during our works our daily works we can think about that we can discuss about that so it's pretty how can I say better it makes it makes much more easier because my daily work lets me think about it Thank you since we're approaching the last 10 minutes I just want to encourage the audience again if you have any questions or remarks feel free to put it in the chat and we are going to read it in and talk about it and why we are waiting for Gabor to arrive I just wanted to ask you guys because Gabor you mentioned that you as an individual can do a lot of things to change the system or do less harm but you still in the end of the day you still feel bad and anxious about it and the UNFCCC the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which was signed by all the countries in the world that changes a global threat to humanity and ecosystems and we have shared but differentiated responsibilities which means that let's just say that we also have some responsibility the President of the United States or Russia or China or India have more responsibility or big corporations have more responsibility when you were doing when you were thinking and writing the play did this play any part in your thoughts that you want to I don't know put this on stage as well because you mostly focused on individual stories well we had some some science some theater science pointing out of this context but we wanted to focus on the individuals because through the individual we can find the connection through more global systems it starts to become politics or it starts to become activism at the point of course theater has political and social aspect where do you make that thin line it's hard it's always an artistic decision or you go directly to activism and it's also great I think it's just not our way of communicating to theater there are some science as I mentioned for example there's a music composed from different political speeches speeches in it in the performance when there is how to say a catwalk on the tables with plastic foils there is a music which there are several politicians speaking in it the first of all Greta Thunberg have her famous speech like how dare you this is the beginning sentence of that music composed by Mark Pastor but we didn't want it to point at anybody like do it or you should do responsibility this kind of aggression I think won't won't work in this context I'm not really sure aggression work in any context direct messages can work but pointing is already like there's a great aggression in it I think the end of the art just one thing if the government mentioned that the line between the theater or art product and between activism and I think it also depends where where is this line depends on the audience how the audience read the show where is the line in the audience so it's moving from every performance and did you receive any feedback during the shows or after the shows from the audience or from other professionals how they read the play how they interpreted it oh yeah sure well there's a great diversity in it so from from leaving immediately and don't even want to speak about it that kind of reaction through long discussions like how it made different associations and I think this kind of dramaturgy this dream dramaturgy is basically invites the audience to use their own associations on the topic find their own enter point this dramaturgy is not like you should read the story from here there is a narrative frame as I mentioned through which you can have a narrative but you can have different entering points through the play and there was one of our friends of the company who started to make a map of all the connections with all the characters like in like pointing out every little reference between in the play and we were like what a hack how did you do it and that was his first showing the performance some of some of our students saw the performance back in Kluzhnapokka and we had of course discussions about it which is hard you know speaking with your students about the play which is yours so I encourage them to try to step back and speak about it as if it would be unknown play for us and then started to share my and their own experiences and how we started to analyze I think this piece is really which you need to think about to find those connections which makes you feel ah okay there's a chest not in it ah okay now I hear the reference and now I can do something with that scene if people are not if somebody from the audience does not like to think about a scene or a context out of that dramaturgical context it might be boring or it might be too messy, too harsh too fast but I think it starts to opens up when the references opening and we found that youngsters are much more open to this kind of dematurgy teenagers, people in their 20s because I think there's a great family guy generation in this in this time which you see is like this is the dematurgy there is a scene and then there's a cut in it you see like 30 seconds of a different scene and then you go back to the story we try to follow this kind of time management in performance actually when I saw the play first time in Budapest I felt a little bit like a boomer so I'm 37 so would you say that this play targets the young audience or it's much more I don't know easier to process or to accept or to connect with this kind of tone, visual tone and artistic tone for people in their 20s or even just it's hard to answer it because the topic asks for this kind of dematurgy I mean asks for this aesthetic of the dematurgy because if you if we try to put this topic as Gabor mentioned in a linear story in a linear dematurgy maybe in the end we we got an answer beside the question so I think the topic brings this kind of dematurgy I also feel that there can be great great choices through a linear dematurgy in this subject but this is our decision, this is our personality, this is our artistic view now so that's how we could do it does it goes for teenagers or more like people in their 20s that's a great question I think it was the performance in the truffle when you were there Peter in the discussion where there was a lady in her 80s and she loved it she was really excited about it in London I felt it really found its audience because for them this kind of broken dematurgy this kind of fast cuts between scenes they were used to it really much so I was really happy that we had the chance to go to the Guadalupe festival back in Budapest it's confusing sometimes students are really quiet and then they just really really enthusiastic at the end or later two days after the performance they wrote us or through their teachers they sent some messages I would say it more about taste theater taste not about age if you like theater which doesn't opens up for you easily you need to work on it in your own I think you can like it but if you would like to get something which you can read which gives you exactly one by one every detail and you can follow it then it's maybe not for you Thank you just a quick remark from me about climate anxiety and you mentioned that theater is good because you're in a shared space and you can create a community there and I just want to say that experts say that one of the best ways is how to deal with climate anxiety is to belong to a community because then you realize that wow everybody else has got these feelings about this huge problem that we have and also doing something anything can ease tension within you regarding this topic but for those people who are already googling the bunkers they say that it's not going to help you because if our civilization collapses you won't be saved there as those guys weren't safe in the bunker as we saw in the play so I would urge everybody to go out to the internet find relevant and scientifically approved information the IPCC would be the best for that and I know I'm the bringer of bad news but if we want system change we need not just an individual approach but also a community approach so when you go to vote when you go shopping you also have to keep in mind what are you paying for and what kind of decision makers you're keeping in power but first and foremost what I wanted to emphasize is to belong to a community and I think that display that you can create this kind of community in a closed space of theater so that would be my ending remark I don't know Gabor Marcel do you have any comments about that? Just saying again thank you thanks for the hall around for supporting us with this streaming and with this discussion we really appreciate it and thank you Peter for the moderation I would like to thank you the organizers and please remember that the recording of the play and this discussion will be available in the archives so if you haven't seen it or you just want to show it to your friends feel free to do so so thank you Gabor thank you Marcel and thank you for the organizers thank you