The first episode of the series is a conversation with the playwright, Skot Wilson. I encountered his play, ‘Kingdom, or the Anthropocene’ at Bristol Old Vic early this year; a play which is both prophetic and absurd, twisting together stories of rising sea levels, boxing kangaroos and a moment of recognition between a deep sea miner and a giant squid named Archie.
Skot works at the Natural History Museum, a place which constantly inspires his writing and curiosity. He is currently working on a play about deep sea mining, to be performed at VAULT theatre in 2020.
When I asked Skot to name a piece of writing that has influenced him most, he answered with Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. Skot and I have compiled a broad reading list for this episode about writing in the Anthropocene, ranging from contemporary plays engaged with human relationships to nature to a 2016 report on environmental risks of the future.
[For a long definition of the term ‘Anthropocene‘]
reading list 1: Skot Wilson
Arcadia, Tom Stoppard [play]
The World Factory, Zoe Svendsen. Also: We know not what we may be & 3rd Ring out: rehearsing the future, Zoe Svendsen. [play]
Kingdom, or the Anthropocene, Skot Wilson [play]
Landscape, Emergency Chorus Theatre company [play]
Dinomania, Kandinsky Theatre company [play]
Harvest, Richard Bean [play]
Infrastruktur, Nicole Wermers [play]
Systema Naturae, Carl Linnaeus
The Language of Cities, Deyan Sudjic
Metamorphoses, Ovid
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pants on Fire Theatre Company [play]
Lungs, Duncan Macmillan [play]
The Antipodes, Annie Baker [play]
Global Assessment summary for Policymakers, by IPBES |link|
The Global Risks Report 2016, pub. World Economic Forum |link|
- Fig 1: Global Risks Landscape
- Fig 2: Global Risks Interconnections Map
- Page 30: Scenarios – in particular, ‘walled cities’ scenario.
A history of orchid propagation: a mirror of the history of biotechnology |link|
Limited resources of genome sequencing in developing countries: Challenges and solutions |link|
The Gilded Canopy: Botanical Ceiling Panels of the Natural History Museum, Sandra Knapp
It was Snowing Butterflies, Charles Darwin
Bee, Claire Preston
Art forms in Nature: Prints of Ernst Haeckel
Everything Not Saved, Malaprop Theatre company [play]
Should this tree have the same rights as you? The new animism, Robert Macfarlane |link|
Theory for the World to Come: Speculative Fiction and Apocalyptic Anthropology, Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer
Rewilding the Novel, Gregory Norminton |link|
Anthropocene curriculum |link|
The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson
Underworld, Robert Macfarlane
The Overstory, Richard Powers
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Intro excerpt from ‘How a Beach Opera at the 58th Venice Biennale Quietly Contends with Climate Change Catastrophe’, Frieze: |link|
Outro excerpt from ‘The Peace of Wild Things’ by Wendell Berry |link|
tales in the anthropocene 