Naomi, the only role in this play despite its huge local cast literally powering the production on bikes which really or in fiction, and no doubt only partially, by generating energy from bikes on the stage, has been left to tell the story of the great Extinctions that have occurred through geological time. We are in the 6th (or was it the 5th) extinction where the rate of species death exceeds even that of the Great Dying in the dawn of pre-human time where 96% of known life forms die.
In telling the story of life creation from one cell forms to plankton, the early life forms are imagined by the play of Naomi’s fingers waving above her head. Once trees are created she asks audience members to mime the forms and then for some to go on stage as their tree species to form the first forest. Sitting in the front row, I volunteered and was a stately big rather rotund tree waving my branches and shaking my leaves. Fortunately no-one thought me worthy of a photo, so you can believe me or not. Lol.
Near the end of the show Naomi defines a clear distinction between death and Extinction. Death is an individual event. It is happening to her friend’s Mum, hence why the friend cannot act in her play. And Zoe’s Mum is sent a blessing wishing her a good death in her hospital room prematurely at 59. And to the audience Naomi says that they should too feel blessed with a wish for each to have a good death. For death is individual. It is the only way of knowing you have a good life. But extinction occurs in the mass. And as species become extinction do we not suffer their extinction in ourselves for we are not separate, are we? The death of so many species lives on in our roots and we will not die, will without taking with us our responsibility for all those species. Naomi lists the species that have become extinct in her own brief young lifetime.
This thought hurts. The sung lament at the end of the show breaks your heart. I stood and clapped so hard I felt my wedding ring fly off my finger. Searching for it after clapping a wonderful young person on the staff tried to help me find it. We failed. I left the theatre only noting the light shining from its foyer and frontage, feeling conscious of the death caused by so much excess light.
I walked more quietly than I am used to , with even my interior monologue stilled. I had booked dinner at The Yak and Yeti, a Nepalese restaurant at Goodramgate, recommended by the daughter of our good friends, a student at York.. As I got to the entrance of the Minster, my phone rang. The theatre had searched and found my wedding ring. It had flown off my finger apparently right to the other side of this sizeable theatre. Mine, the manager who handed my ring said, was clearly a very enthusiastic response to the fact that is play moved by the beauty of the terror it represented.
Thank you beautiful people of York. I even got to the Yak and Yeti.
And I walked back to my hotel warm and chastened, as if I were a Wedding Guest who had been told a story of extinction like that of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.. anc hadn’t I. The moon shone over Fossgate but it’s brilliance was dulled by the visible particles I now saw floating from extinct species. I was wearing perhaps my own Albatross.
If you can see this production do. It stuns.
With love
Steve
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