A couple debates whether to bring a child into a world on fire. Scientists race to build a coral reef in a lab. Somewhere in Antarctica, a team attempts to hold back a melting glacier with a seawall. And in the dark, the last frog of its species calls out—hoping, futilely, for a mate.
In Scenes from the Climate Era, Australian playwright David Finnigan zooms in and out of time and geography to piece together a fractured, urgent portrait of the climate crisis. Moving with agility between absurdity and gravity, domestic dialogue and planetary dilemmas, the play reframes climate change not as a singular catastrophe, but as an evolving human story that is simultaneously tender, terrifying, and deeply interconnected.
In this Singapore iteration, created in collaboration with director Ellison Tan and a cast of local performers, the work has been adapted with a regional resonance, featuring rewritten scenes and restructured narratives that ground the material in Southeast Asian contexts. We caught up with David Finnigan via email to learn more about how this work took shape, the challenges of dramatising a planetary crisis, and why he believes storytelling still matters even in a world at the edge of collapse.
Bakchormeeboy: How did the idea for this work even come about in the first place and how does it feel to bring it to an Asian country like Singapore?
David Finnigan: I’ve worked in Singapore since 2016, as a resident artist at the Earth Observatory at NTU, looking at natural hazards and climate shocks in Southeast Asia—so actually, this is the key context that I understand climate change in. For me, Asia is on the frontline of both the impacts of climate change and our response to it, from the perspective of how we redesign our society and infrastructure to handle the impacts, through to the energy transition that takes us away from fossil fuel dominance. Singapore is a key part of that conversation, so in many ways this feels like bringing the story home.
Bakchormeeboy: How differently do you think Singaporeans will receive it from Western countries? What was your involvement when it came to the adaptation process, and what do you feel about the adaptation?
This has been a really exciting process— Ellison (Tan, director) spent time going through the script with me in detail, we discussed each scene and its relevance to the context here. I was guided by Ellison in terms of what material would work best here, and what new material might be constructed in response to this specific context. Ellison and the ensemble have created some entirely new material, which is very exciting, and which I’m delighted to get to experience alongside the audience!
Bakchormeeboy: What was the decision in designing a show with so many scenes/playlets, especially when it comes to concerns around cast members and director deciding and remembering the flow? Is there an underlying flow or pattern that the playlets follow, eg in terms of increasing intensity, rising/falling action etc?
Yes, there is a thematic arc that holds the work together, that roughly traces a little of the personal emotional experience that we all go through when processing the reality of climate change. Maybe one way to think of it is a little like an album—it’s a set of distinct songs, each of which has its own shape and form, but it’s carefully sequenced to create an overarching experience. And like an album, it’s short! Which feels important for a work of this kind.
There’s no preaching or choir involved with this production. Speaking for myself, I’m not interested in giving anyone instructions or provoking people to take any particular action. What drove me in the writing of this work was my fascination with the extraordinary moment we’re living in—the wild and unexpected stories that are unfolding all around us in the world today, which would have seemed impossible to even dream of a decade ago. This is a wild time to be alive! Frightening, awe-inspiring, painful, euphoric, dreadful and exhilarating, all at once. That’s what the play is about.
I think the experience of being in the theatre for a story like this is to process and make sense of all these conflicting stories and feelings, as part of a group of people. There’s no choir, everyone in the audience is different, with their own feelings and understandings and relationship to the climate and these big global changes—so no two people will have an identical response. But still, there’s something very powerful about processing this as part of a collective of people, something transformative that you can’t get from any other medium. That’s a privilege and a rush and I can’t wait to see it unfold.
Photo Credit: Yuk Wong
Scenes From The Climate Era plays from 18th to 20th July 2025 at the Esplanade Theatre Studio. Tickets available here
The Studios 2025 – Sustenance runs from July to September 2025. Full programme and more information available here
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