GKAT Lecture Towards a 21st-Century Commons in Climate Change Drama: A Reciprocal Perspective on Authority and Trust

In the last ten years, conceptualizations of a commons have been gaining traction in the study of ecodrama and ecotheater. Acts of commoning that adopt a planetary approach to selfhood, interaction, and future survival on Planet Earth tend to focus on breaking with social, political, economic, and aesthetic hierarchies. They are rooted in relational concepts that revolve around reciprocal and heterarchical thinking, not only on but also off the stage. In my talk, I will discuss some of the strategies developed by playwrights and theatermakers associated with the biennial theater festival Climate Change Theatre Action, which has been taking place before and after UN COP climate conferences since 2015. These five-minute plays are to illustrate the intervention of climate change theater in potentially insurgent commons-based engagement and thinking which tries to avoid virtue signaling and other self-promoting forms of supposed solidarity.