“Change doesn’t belong in the classroom.”
In the halved traverse of KXT’s innards, two handfuls of strangers and myself witnessed a sharp, honest, and political play pivoted by… hormones. Curfews. Cake stalls. Lunchtime detentions and Astroturf (patchy and discoloured á la public school swimming carnivals). A space of confiscated iPads and wired headphones worn under the button-up, a breeding ground for political conversation: the so-called Australian High School. Perhaps, then, the smell of Lynx deodorant in the theatre was but a placebo.
These Youths Be Protesting, written and directed by theatre maker/environmental activist Izabella Louk and presented by Blinking Light Theatre is a proclaimed climate-change-comedy that suggests something undeniable about the climate crisis. It is a problem placed in the hands of the youths. It is a crisis inherited by those still unable to vote, and yet who are immersed already in the politics of the playground. Who shall be running for school captain in three years’ time? Does our recycling club have enough yellow bins? Okay, Kiss Marry Kill… your crush, my crush and… Jacob Elordi. Scratch that — they’re building what to our favourite spot?
Four youths, Lemon (Karrine Kanaan), Jimbo (Hamish Alexander), Georgie (Rachel Thomas) and Mandi (Mây Trần) find themselves entangled in a political palaver. Local, fictional politician Greg Morseby (akin to a slice of white bread wearing a tie) visits their recycling-fundraiser cakestall and posts it online as part of his campaign trail, in which he is to build a new mine at their favourite ‘hang-out’ spot: the dunes.
The youths find themselves thrust into a world of online and offline political slander, and yet also friendship degradation and dreaded school suspension. It is a question of what to do when doing the “right” or “sensible” thing would mean ignoring what’s most important to you; an idea of the high-schooler-autonomy, both bodily and politically. Here were four young people entrapped in a set that looked like a high school art project (wire fences, cardboard trees and school-yard posters), trying to speak of the climate crisis, trying to be heard, all whilst learning, for the first time, what it truly means to ‘protest’.
“We are scared,” says Mandi at the exciting first drilling of Moresby’s new mine, “but we are also sick of adults digging up our futures.”
There is something to commend in the direction of the play. First-time director, Louk has created a quick-witted and confident piece of theatre; from the tabloid slow-motion to the employment of the iPhone as underlight, reminiscent of a torch under one’s chin, beginning the ghost stories of social media slanders past. It is seventy-five minutes of comedic and intelligent commentary on the climate crisis at hand. The writing almost demands us to notice how laughing can be, and often is, the first step at being able to discuss something like the climate crisis á la “you used to be way cooler in year five,” or ‘anger is a twisty pit of fear’. The play reminds us that these young people, however passionate, are often left out of the political/activist spheres due to such teenagedom. However well-deciphered, I would critique that we didn’t see this fully-realised resolution for each of the characters. I wanted to see Lemon’s redemption beyond her speech, and Jimbo’s sensitivity beyond the once-mentioned passing of his mother. The softness of these characters may have been shadowed too bluntly with the plays’ comedy and charisma or teenage awkwardness. But then, just like the teenager, the play is not afraid to be awkward, or scared, or dramatic.
For, after all, the play is a call to arms for young activism, whilst serenading to the seldom awkwardness of that teenagedom. The play handles both this phenomena and the extremely relevant, and pressing issue of climate change with said humour. The school-yard riot, the entrapment of what it means to be a teenager amidst a world in which politics are up to the adults, not the children. We riot — or, try to — and all the while our bodies, our friendships, our world changes shape before us.
‘These Youths Be Protesting’ will be showing at KXT on Broadway until the 19th of April.
Want to hear Izabella Louk’s thoughts on the climate movement, and being a first time director? Read an interview with her here!
