Review: "Ogallala" Opens Its Doors in Torch Ensemble's Latest "Climate Fable"

The Climate Fables: Ogallala

Written by Padraig Bond

Directed by Zoë Kay

Presented by Torch Ensemble and FRIGID New York at UNDER St. Marks

94 St. Marks Place, Manhattan, NYC

September 20-22, 2024

Demeter, the world's last surviving elephant in playwright Padraig Bond's The Climate Fables: Ogallala, shares a name with the goddess of crop growth and fertility, both of which are central concerns in this newest production in Torch Ensemble's cycle of ecological plays. Ogallala is Torch Ensemble's second production of a residency at FRIGID New York and the fourth of The Climate Fables produced so far in a planned twelve-play cycle–the standard number of chapters in epics–spanning 1,000 years. With two further plays in the cycle set for UNDER St. Marks this fall, Ogallala, boasting the longest runtime and largest cast of an individual Fable so far, picks up, among other threads, the story of Susan Kether (Penelope Deen), pregnant in a post-climate-apocalypse world in which human reproduction has become rare, as she, like Demeter, makes her way toward a place that may offer humanity a second chance not only to survive but to do so by living in interdependence with rather than through exploitation of the rest of the world ecology.

The first two Climate Fables to be staged, Debating Extinction and The Trash Garden, are widely separated in the cycle's timeline (and, to a lesser degree, formally divergent), but with the recent productions, we have begun to see more of the cycle's overarching arc coming into view, adding some additional fun and richness for those who have seen more than one Fable, though each also stands alone perfectly well. Ogallala brings audiences a direct sequel to Debating Extinction, in which Susan's mother, Miranda, assertively not a proponent of human repopulation, kills Teddy, by whom Susan had become pregnant, prompting Susan to flee. Ogallala picks up with Susan still on the run from Miranda (Kristen Hoffman), beginning with the pair even wearing the same costumes as in Debating Extinction. Susan has been heading south on the Eastern seaboard–the boundaries of which have changed quite a bit–and crosses paths with Antonio (Daniel Gomez) and Veronica Ramirez (Adriana Ascencio), who are traveling with Demeter (brought skillfully to life by Yanniv Frank). It is Demeter who has set their destination, since she will only travel in the direction of Ogallala, a growing human settlement named for the Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains and run by Fred Oakland (Luis Feliciano), who survived the eponymous event in The Collapse of the Hubbard Glacier alongside Miranda when both of them were much younger. Now older and in declining health, Fred, as any founder must, is preparing to leave Ogallala and whatever it bodes for the future in the hands of its residents and direct democracy. Also in the mix are a pair of poachers (Anna Larranaga and Jaixa Irizarry) made more dangerous by a personal vendetta.

With Ogallala, and The Climate Fables more generally, it sometimes feels like one is watching a history play before the fact. Fred, for instance, recalls the violent military conflicts over water. Veronica used to work at Disney World, where workers and customers were not warned by those higher up the capitalist hierarchy that the waters were coming, an anecdote that brings to mind scholar Nancy Fraser's discussion of capitalism's "non-accidental, structural imbrication with … ecological degradation" (Cannibal Capitalism, Verso, 2022, p. 19) among other "forms of social injustice" (p. 78). A litany of species destroyed by humanity is delivered by Miranda in a raw howl of lamentation, and what Fred reveals about the aquifer functions as a vivid symbol of humanity's past mistakes and responsibility to learn from rather than repeat them. (He also advocates returning stolen land and its stewardship to Indigenous peoples, an excellent suggestion.) In fact, Fred's location of his own power in the remembrance of history is positioned against Miranda's literally magical powers, although this contrast is pleasingly complicated in a great late scene.

In Ogallala, The Climate Fables continues to play with form across its installments. Here, the tale follows a nonlinear path, with narrative elements clicking nicely into place by the end. And, perhaps more notably, the production includes a strong dose of audience interaction (we appreciated how spectators were asked on their way in whether they were game for participation or not and allotted wristbands accordingly). One instance occurs during a constitutional convention in which the audience is invited to participate (a segment that echoes the way in which choice becomes a theme around reproduction as well). The show stages some affectingly dark, even violent scenes, but the convention scene, during which Sophia Radix, as one of those helping to run the meeting, is as hilarious as she is earlier playing a cook who serves only eggs, provides one example of the comic side of Ogallala. Julia Pasko, Jess Lauricello, and Sivan Raz are funny as well as, respectively, prominent voices in and the moderator of the convention, and Gomez's Antonio earlier gets a great joke about the usefulness of a theater degree in the post-climate-apocalypse. Gomez largely plays Antonio with an upbeat congeniality and charming enthusiasm but makes a stark contrast of his character's anger and grief when he recounts Demeter's backstory. Deen's performance as Susan stretches from quasi-Shakespearean comedy to anguished pathos, and Feliciano renders Fred a comfortingly benevolent presence (the scene when he announces that he is leaving the settlement is extremely effective), while Hoffman plays eco-witch Miranda with the power of the storms that she can summon. Ultimately, any show that succeeds in generating a feeling of horror at the very idea that someone might cut off the tusk of an elephant represented by an articulated cardboard head is certainly doing something right.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

Review of The Climate Fables: Debating Extinction
Review of The Climate Fables: The Collapse of the Hubbard Glacier
Review of The Climate Fables: The Trash Garden