Conscious themes in mainstream performance art.

Two recent London plays have had audiences grappling with environmental issues. The National Theater’s production of Greenland, slammed as partisan, dull and rotten theater by the critics, dealt with sea levels rising in the Maldives and the failed UN talks in Copenhagen. Another show, The Heretic, a black comedy by stand-up Richard Bean, drew raves over its comedic approach to atmospheric doom and gloom, focusing on an earth scientist at York University. When her studies on rising sea levels fail to yield a major grant, she appears on BBS’s Newsnight and is fired, only to end up with a column in the Daily Telegraph. Both shows feature what else? A polar bear as symbol of our shame. As one Guardian critic put it, “Climate change drama is the new growth industry.”

As green creeps into art and seeps subliminally into our global consciousness, we wonder if it makes a dent in our behavior, the true test of a shift. While New York Times reviewer, Matt Wolf, dismissed Greenland as a “falsely stitched patchwork quilt” of worse case scenarios alongside a few facts, he also admitted muttering “Recycle, recycle, recycle,” all the way home. Easily distracted as we tend to be in bad theater, his review says he also became painfully aware of the mundane activities of audience members as they crumpled packets of snacks and popped plastic water bottles. “Hang on!” I wanted to call out,” he shares. “Is no one paying this show any heed?”

It is a good question, one posed in 1971 when The Lorax was first published, Dr. Seuss’s post-Sixties warning not to fool with Mother Nature and her magical Truffula Trees, Swomee-Swans, brown Bar-Ba-Loots and Humming-Fishes. The yellow Lorax, who spoke on behalf of the trees, convinces the Once-ler to resist chopping them down to mass produce Thneeds. The lesson of greed leading to environmental destruction is being reintroduced to a new audience four decades later as an animated 3-D feature to be released March of 2012.

Arguably catering to the adult brain, the same way the irony in Shrek went past young viewers, the Lorax’s undeniable message comes at a better time now than its dawn in the 70’s, when many people still thought it was okay to throw potato chip bags out the window, run sprinklers with no end in sight, and were watching blockbuster movies like The Graduate, where a young Dustin Hoffman looked at “plastics” as his future. Nowadays, film and theater goers are much more sensitized to these underlying messages, young and old alike, thanks to the groundwork of environmentalists who act as stewards of the planet and creative writers relying on entertainment as their hybrid vehicle of transformation.

Fine art also relies on subtle interpretations of symbolism in producing change, and like many theaters, the conscious mission means process as well as product. At Eco-Logical in Los Angeles, the emphasis is on exhibiting the work of a community which uses repurposed and recycled materials.

The gallery provides salvaged billboard vinyl as canvases to artists in exchange for exposure, sparing an estimated 450 million square feet of toxic, non-biodegradable billboard vinyl tossed into landfills each year. The fine art, billboard art viewed by thousands weekly, and functional art naturally deals with eco themes, such as works premiered in its highly successful EartH exhibit, visited by more than 400 art goers.

The notion of urban blight reborn as art and theater crafted to spare trees and polar bears offers hope at a time when green as a popular movement has neared the saturation point, risking the chance of making us immune to the message.  In this way, playwright Bean’s brand of humor in The Heretic and Seuss’s quirky metaphorical verse in The Lorax might be the tonic for the catatonic, and even those resisting the green bandwagon’s cultural hold will be muttering “recycle, recycle, recycle,” all the way home.

Images: More Intelligent Life; The Royal Court Theater; Papahere; Eco-Logical

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First there was “clean coal”, now there’s “green coal” – though neither would gain the approval of the Lorax. But that hasn’t stopped a Massachusetts coal startup from calling themselves “LoraxAg“, after the beloved Dr. Seuss character.

The coal-gasification company plans to make farm fertilizer from high-sulfur coal, which currently has little use, and claims that it can do so without pollution. It also runs a chemical production facility. Mike Farina, President of LoraxAg, defends the company’s use of the name.

“The Lorax is the protector of the truffula trees,” he told Mass High Tech. “We think this is the greenest use of coal.”

As the Wonk Room notes, “the “˜greenest use of coal’ is keeping it in the ground – not blowing the tops off of mountains to burn it”.  It seems the Lorax would agree.

The character, who famously spoke for the Truffula Trees when a businessman chopped them down to make Thneeds, is not a fan of smogulous smoke or machinery that makes Gluppity-Glupp and Schloppity-Schlopp.

But the question of whether coal can ever be green is the least of LoraxAg’s problems. According to Karl Zobell,  a lawyer for Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the company is using the name unlawfully.

“We did not give permission for them to use the Lorax, which Dr. Seuss created,” Zobell told the Wonk Room.

LoraxAg, which was co-founded by the son of former New Hampshire governor and White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, is currently seeking investors. Since the Lorax isn’t here to speak for himself, we can only imagine what he would say.

“Sir! You are crazy with greed. There is no one on earth who would buy that fool Thneed!”

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A couple of days ago I revisited my childhood and caught up with my old friends Dr. Seuss and the Lorax. It was the least I could do, seeing that it was Dr. Suess’s 105th birthday. Of course, he is no longer with us, but The Lorax lives on and should be required reading for anyone aged from 1 to 101 or more.

You do remember the Lorax, don’t you? If not, let me remind you about this character created by Dr. Seuss in 1971. A strange gopher-like creature with a fluffy blond mustache and a sheepish smile, the Lorax battles a greedy businessman named Once-ler who arrives in the forest, builds a huge factory and then fells all the Trufulla trees to create a new product he thinks everyone needs.

He chops and he chops til there are no trees left, despite the Lorax’s warnings that without the Truffula trees, the forest will disappear. And disappear it did, for Once-ler would not stop and in the end the wildlife and the Lorax just had to leave.

The Lorax was ahead of its time with its story of environmental destruction and deforestation. It certainly is now considered a green classic – for kids and adults, too.

Last year, The Lorax was re-released on Earth Day, complete with a special environmental message and printed on recycled paper. The Lorax Project, a child-friendly interactive web site designed to raise awareness of green issues and inspire everyone to be more earth-friendly, was also launched.

Having re-introduced you to the Lorax, it’s only fair you hear what he says in the end…

“Unless
someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It’s not.”

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