Close Menu
Honi Soit
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Trending
    • 2025 Queer Revue: A wild ride of wigs, fanfiction, and Pitbull 
    • I like my Lower House shaken, not stirred: LNP and Greens look to new leadership
    • 2025 USU Board Election Provisional Results Announced
    • 77 Years of Nakba: Thousands protest in Sydney against Israel’s Occupation
    • جذوري my roots
    • Patterns of a War-Torn Conscience: Towards a Healing Conceptualisation of Praxis
    • Enmore Psychogeography
    • The night has its own logic
    • About
    • Print Edition
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    • Writing Comp
    • Advertise
    • Locations
    • Contact
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok
    Honi SoitHoni Soit
    Sunday, May 18
    • News
    • Analysis
    • Culture
    • Opinion
    • University
    • Features
    • Perspective
    • Investigation
    • Reviews
    • Comedy
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    Honi Soit
    Home»Reviews

    Kip Chapman’s The Resistance: The Most Fun You’ll Ever Have While Worrying about Climate Change

    ‘The Resistance’ offers a night of pure enjoyment that sheds an important light on the current operation of the climate movement in Australia.
    By Mariika MehiganMarch 1, 2023 Reviews 4 Mins Read
    Photography by Clare Hawley.
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Kip Chapman’s The Resistance is 90 minutes of glorious chaos, providing poignant commentary on climate activism with the energy of a children’s birthday party. 

    The Resistance follows five climate activists as they struggle to organise what will become the biggest climate rally in Australian history, in which millions throughout the country will take the streets in order to put pressure on the Australian government to sign the fictional Athens Agreement. The group of activists are effortless crafted archetypes, reminiscent of your favourite childhood television shows. There’s Pepper (Thea Scholl), the boisterous one with a worrying interest in explosives, Miro (Jack Walton) the anxious tech expert that Pepper loves to bully, Drew (Genevieve Lemon), the scatterbrained head of the art department, Bundilla (Lakesha Grant) the passionate one who ultimately makes the decisions and Marlee (Diya Goswami), who’s shy but becomes the reluctant face of the movement. 

    The group scramble to prepare for the arrival of Eva Lawson, a Greta Thunberg-esque figure whom they’ve centred in their campaign, on the backdrop of a set that evokes a childhood wonderland. The walls are painted entirely hot pink, scaffolding adorned with colourful foam rollers and wires taking centre stage. At the top of the scaffolding sits a computer with a convoluted assortment of wires springing around it, seemingly plucked out of an eleven-year-olds imagination. “It looks like an episode of Richard Hammond’s Blast Lab,” my friend Lucy whispers to me. Scattered across the walls were four TV screens, a nod to the work by another Kip, Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a similarity that is acknowledged throughout the play. 

    As the team bickers back and forth, volunteers are brought to the stage, some sitting in the craft area colouring the banners for the protest that’s to come. The plot is frequently interrupted by the actors breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience directly, prefaced by techno music that you’d find in a game show. The interruptions range from Pepper asking, “we just want to know who’s your favourite character so far, so put your hand up if it’s Pepper!”, to the audience being encouraged to take out our  phones, open YouTube and search the sounds of our favourite animal.

    The group hits a roadblock in their plan as they discover Eva Lawson is no longer coming, throwing their plan into whack and forcing Marlee into a leadership role, which she adamantly resists. One of the play’s best moments is Marlee’s reluctant participation in an interview with  the Minister for Energy. The scene features the political doublespeak we all know too well, as he condescendingly claims that “we need a diversity of energy producing projects” and a “conversation grounded in fact.” As they discuss the figure they are expecting at their rally, he rebuts, “let’s have a maths lesson since we’re in school today.” This dialogue, compounded with the child-like randomness of the production, articulates Chapman’s key argument, that the youth of the climate movement is both its greatest strength and its Achilles heel.


    Such a point is exemplified when Bundilla sees Drew’s newly designed banners. As one reads ‘We Still Have Hope,’ she’s infuriated by the softness of the message, yelling “this is why nothing changes … its a privilege to be nice.” 

    ‘The Resistance’ offers a night of pure enjoyment that sheds an important light on the current operation of the climate movement in Australia. Its themes ring eerily true for a generation that’s become accustomed to continuous reminders that the odds are stacked against us, but as Chapman reminds us, there’s power in anger and strength in fun. Harness these and make change.

    activism climate change greta thunberg theatre

    Keep Reading

    2025 Queer Revue: A wild ride of wigs, fanfiction, and Pitbull 

    Great Minds Against Themselves Conspire: Theatre, the mind, and society

    Charting a Course for Home: Hannah Kent’s ‘Always Home, Always Homesick’ (2025)

    A Cacophonous Calamity of Queer Community: The Wedding Banquet (2025)

    An air of Frogaccini

    “Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs”: The Player Kings at the Seymour Centre

    Just In

    2025 Queer Revue: A wild ride of wigs, fanfiction, and Pitbull 

    May 18, 2025

    I like my Lower House shaken, not stirred: LNP and Greens look to new leadership

    May 17, 2025

    2025 USU Board Election Provisional Results Announced

    May 16, 2025

    77 Years of Nakba: Thousands protest in Sydney against Israel’s Occupation

    May 16, 2025
    Editor's Picks

    A meditation on God and the impossible pursuit of answers

    May 14, 2025

    We Will Be Remembered As More Than Administrative Errors

    May 7, 2025

    NSW universities in the red as plague of cuts hit students & staff

    April 30, 2025

    Your Compliance Will Not Save You

    April 16, 2025
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok

    From the mines

    • News
    • Analysis
    • Higher Education
    • Culture
    • Features
    • Investigation
    • Comedy
    • Editorials
    • Letters
    • Misc

     

    • Opinion
    • Perspective
    • Profiles
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Social
    • Sport
    • SRC Reports
    • Tech

    Admin

    • About
    • Editors
    • Send an Anonymous Tip
    • Write/Produce/Create For Us
    • Print Edition
    • Locations
    • Archive
    • Advertise in Honi Soit
    • Contact Us

    We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. The University of Sydney – where we write, publish and distribute Honi Soit – is on the sovereign land of these people. As students and journalists, we recognise our complicity in the ongoing colonisation of Indigenous land. In recognition of our privilege, we vow to not only include, but to prioritise and centre the experiences of Indigenous people, and to be reflective when we fail to be a counterpoint to the racism that plagues the mainstream media.

    © 2025 Honi Soit
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms
    • Accessibility

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.