Building ecological awareness through ecotheatre: Agency of place

Introduction

Ecological awareness is inextricably linked to our physical connection with the environment, whether real or imagined. Art that focuses on the relationship between humans and the wider world can activate the body’s memory and enable the agency of place. One such art form is ecological theatre, also known as ecotheatre. This genre of theatre focuses on the relationship between humans and the non-human world, taking into account environmental conflicts and issues while striving for a sustainable life cycle in the artwork itself. The diversity of opinions inherent in ecotheatre, alongside the role of local agencies in experiencing the artwork, fosters a stronger connection to place. In this type of theatre, a place can be viewed as both a home and a landscape. This essay explores the theoretical context of place in theatre and its connection to posthumanism in ecotheatre.

Ecotheatre as response to crisis

The ecological crisis, which encompasses a range of environmental and social problems, is diffuse in time and space and externally gradual, thus preventing an immediate human response and a change in attitudes and behaviour. Ecological awareness, understood as an awareness of the inevitably close interconnectedness between humans and the environment, undermines the anthropocentric belief that there is no reference point other than the human (Morton 2021), so theatre that strengthens human ecological awareness meanwhile weakens the anthropocentric point of view. Ecological consciousness means thinking and doing ethically and politically from multiple points of reference, not just one: the human (Morton 2021).

As art can contain contradictions, it can create a safe space in which to address the highly emotional or affective traumas of climate change and other environmental issues (Davis 2020), while theatre in particular can become a place for the human species and other species with which humans share space on the planet (May 2021), and for imagining a sustainable future (Hubbell & Ryan 2022). Ecotheatre is an approach for creation of an environmental imaginary through collaborative exploration and embodied storytelling while taking into account sustainability aspects of performance making (Balcare 2025). This means that ecotheatre has the potential to become a form of ecological imagination that is important for raising environmental awareness. Such imaginaries have a significant impact on how society responds to the growing climate crisis and environmental challenges (Neimanis et al. 2015), with the character of a hyperobject.

To describe the interconnection between environmental and social issues in the 21^st century, researcher Marissia Fragkou uses the term “ecologies of precarity” (Fragkou 2019) highlighting a globally applicable perception of the world during the climate crisis. Just as imagination and creativity are important for solving social issues, they are equally important for re-evaluating environmental issues. Environmental imagination can significantly influence how we relate to and solve environmental problems and crises (Neimanis et al. 2015).

Climate-sensitive art, according to climate dramaturge Zoe Svendsen, encompasses tasks such as expressing concern, imagining new forms of relationships, building connections, acknowledging guilt, collectively grieving losses, and collaboratively addressing complex questions, including the re-evaluation of who we are and what we might become (Svendsen 2021). The tone and artistic techniques with which to engage in the conversation about the ecological crisis in theatre are decisions left to each practitioner.

Space after perspective

Looking from theoretical perspective theatre scholar Amy Holzapfel uses the concepts of landscape and climatescape to talk about time and space in theatre and to look for human points of contact with the world outside the human being. Landscape refers to the spatial dimension, and climatescape to the temporal dimension. Landscape refers to the visible relationship between figures and the ground, while climatescape refers to all the bodies and spaces within it as part of an interconnected whole (Holzapfel 2015).

In 2018, art historian Ana Vujanović theorises the concept of landscape dramaturgy in the field of the arts, meaning a metaphor based on a re-evaluation of the human mind and human action in the current world, which takes into account the consumerist attitude towards the planet that characterises the Anthropocene (Vujanović 2018). Moreover, Vujanović interprets it as the space after perspective, marking this aspect of the imaginary, the future, which is essential in the case of ecotheatre.

The theorist of theatre concepts, Patrice Pavis, defines several spaces that can be applied to theatre: dramatic space; theatre space; gestural space; textual space; inner space (Pavis 1998). In the ecotheatre, it is particularly essential to analyse two of them. First of all, the theatrical space shared by actors and spectators, and the relationships that develop within it. Pavis allows this space to include all the other spaces he has carved out, since this is how the whole “architecture” of the performance is constructed. Secondly, the inner space, which in the context of ecotheatre is understood as the space of the collective imagination. In Pavis view, the inner space allows for the presence of fantasy, dream or vision – also the presence of the dystopian.

Although the concept of landscape has been increasingly used in the humanities since the 1980s, Pavis does not see its growing popularity in theatre and its research as a spatial turn, but rather as a convenient metaphor (Pavis 2016). Morton emphasises that the human tendency to view landscapes pictorially and from the outside is an expression of an anthropocentric view. The romanticisation of landscapes can only be replaced by experiencing them first-hand (Morton 2021). An active and transformative space should not be considered solely as a physical location. Instead, it can be viewed as a hybrid of physical and social infrastructure, where new relationships are formed. Such spaces can be temporary, flexible and fluid (Laiviņa 2024). In ecotheatre, the landscape transcends the boundaries of metaphor and plays an active role in the performance when the audience enters the landscape and becomes part of it to interact with it directly.

If we assume that theatre is distinguished from other arts by the presence of living bodies and that ecodramaturgical theatre means theatre connected to the environment (Woynarski 2020), then ecotheatre also means theatre that is transbodily. The environment relevant to the trans-bodily thus acquires an active role in ecotheatre, where the site chosen for the performance is relevant not only in its imagined manifestation, but also in its physical and material sense.

Focusing on the concept of place as a home, and emphasising the connection between humans and the non-human world inherent in posthumanist ideas, the notion of home in ecotheatre productions can be understood more broadly as a landscape comprising various layers and scales. Therefore, when analysing the interconnection between place and human beings in ecotheatre production, it can be considered in terms of both home and landscape.

In ecotheatre, the impact of a place gradually changes, evolving from a passive setting to an active participant in the performance. A place that plays an active role in an eco-theatre performance can manifest itself as a home, for example, actualising and strengthening personal connections through physical interaction with the place, and consequently fostering a sense of responsibility for it. Alternatively, it can manifest itself as various types of landscapes, such as geographical, vanished or vanishing, imagined or invisible.

Place as home, place as landscape

The theatre can also be considered home. According to theatre scholar Una Chaudhuri, the theatre is a place to be inhabited at a particular time and in a particular way, but without ownership of it; it is a place for direct, immediate exchange of experience (Chaudhuri 1997), thus highlighting the collective nature and therapeutic importance of the theatre in an age of ecological crisis.

Climate change is also changing aesthetics. Environmentalist Bil McKibben argues that with the end of natural nature, new dystopian landscapes with a new sense of beauty are opening up to the human eye, such as smog-covered sunset skies or flocks of birds in vast waste fields (McKibben 1989). One of the reasons why humans tend to pay so little attention to the more-than-human world is the belief that nature is impermanent or eternal, and only when something disappears do we begin to understand its meaning (McKibben 1989).

In the case of site-specific theatre, the site acquires an active role in the performance if it is made visible rather than scenographically dressed up (Lehmann 2006). Ecotheatre practitioners prefer to communicate environmental conflicts in nature by taking the audience there, rather than simulating nature’s presence on the theatre stage indoors (Balcare 2022). Being in nature and activating senses is approach how to deepen the audience’s connection with nature, while also making them aware of their own ecological awareness. However, it should be noted that becoming aware of hyper-materiality, repositioning oneself in the environment and understanding this interconnectedness can be an exhausting process (Alaimo 2023).

Researcher Liz Woynarski proposes the idea of bioperformativity, where the non-human beings have agency in artworks and where they produce not only symbolic but also physical effects with the aim of raising the ecological awareness of the audience (Woynarski 2020). Place can also have agency, especially in ecodramaturgical works where place not only drives the action but also takes on an active role (May 2007).

Humans have a habit of seeing environmental harm as localised harm, which environmentalist McKibben describes as a human belief in the power of nature to heal itself (McKibben 1989). For environmental theatre performances with ecodramaturgical content, attention to the landscape is essential. In ecotheatre performances practitioners use imaginary landscapes, invisible landscapes, documentary landscapes, changing landscapes and also disappearing landscapes.

Theatre scholars Una Chaudhuri and Elinor Fuchs assert that landscape has a special significance as an intermediary between space and place. They argue that the concept of landscape is better able to reflect the complex spatial relationships in contemporary theatre forms, as well as the relationship between theatre and the world at large (Fuchs & Chaudhuri 2002).

Being outside the theatre in a particular environment where an eco-theatre performance takes place, and having a different kind of aesthetic-emotional and often physical experience there, can deepen the understanding of the interaction between humans and the world outside (Beaufils 2022). Building on the concept of place in ecodramaturgy, Woynarski suggests four types of places: local, imagined, material and global (Woynarski 2020).

In order to apply the theoretical principles to the analysis of ecotheatre performances, these four sites can also be seen as four layers of landscape in the context of the environmental issue at the centre of the performance.

Ecotheatre is characterised by its diversity of forms and storytelling approaches. In ecotheatre, the meaning and agency of the place change as the form of the performance changes. If environmental or site-specific theatre is used, the site has the potential to become bioperformative in an ecotheatrical performance, crossing the boundary between scenography and metaphor to become a co-creator and participant in the performance, thereby activating the audience’s ecological awareness.

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