Kyoto at Soho Place

How to make a gripping theatrical piece out of a climate conference and diplomacy? The Royal Shakespeare Company, led by their new co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, and Good Chance set their eyes on the prize of such a challenge over one year ago. The play is now debuting in the West End in the highly modern @sohoplace, which offers a circular immersive space for a production that from the sounds of it will involve a lot of paperwork. There are definitely a lot of bound papers going around, but there is also definitely an enthralling performance and a tense rhythm that makes the show hypnotic.

The Seven Sisters (the big oil companies dominating the market in the 70s) see the upcoming series of UN conferences on environmental issues as a threat to their dominance and wealth growth. To throw up roadblocks, they hire lawyer Don Pearlman (Stephen Kunken), who will pull the strings in the shadows so that any report or treaty won’t be ratified. His tactics to create discord are detected, however, by Angela Merkel (Kristin Atherton), then Germany’s Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and Raúl Estrada-Oyuela (Jorge Bosch), Chairman of the Negotiating Committee for Framework Convention on Climate Change. But even with Pearlman’s intervention deterred, the negotiations remain strenuous, with hardly a light at the end of the tunnel.

Despite its aftermath, particularly in America, the Kyoto Protocol represents the very first instance of an international agreement to tackle the climate crisis, which was approved unanimously. Diplomacy and endurance are the protagonists. The more complex information, the details of numbers and figures, are passed by nonchalantly, while how one word cast against a possible alliance or else an arrogant preposition augments disparities of power take centre stage. The script is tight, and the dialogue across the round podium runs fast and often aggressively, conveying that sense of urgency that should unite a community of leaders, instead of increasing the disagreement. It’s an incredibly well-set text, delivered with the support of screens, lights and sounds that are manoeuvred by instructions of the cast too.

Kunken is sharp, his character’s determined stance reflected in every inch of his body. He is obviously the bad guy in the story, however, he comes across as deserving of great esteem for his military tactics and anticipating ploys. He is the one making the climate crisis debates appear as a war against the US way of living, American success, and eventually against the States’ very existence. “This is America” is the resounding refrain, which almost recalls the same vehement “This is America” line in The Lehman Trilogy. Only in Stefano Massimi’s play it was proclaimed for the land of dreams-come-true, in the work by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson it assumed the tone of an arrogant profession.

Jorge Bosch is high-calibre in his switching from the humourist to the assiduous diplomat. He is the pendulum and, in the second part, the driving force standing up to Pearlman. The appearance of the seven sisters is ominous and often quite caricatural.

Apart from a few chairs and signposts scattered among audience members sitting right at the bottom of the stage, there is minimal presence of props and settings, leaving the big personalities and talks to hold the floor. If you are hoping to get a lesson on environmentalism and how to become an advocate for the planet, you will be disappointed: this punchy production is a showcase of the art of negotiation.

Cristiana Ferrauti
Photos: Manual Harlan

Kyoto is at Soho Place from 9^th January until 3^rd May 2025. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch a scene from Kyoto at Soho Place here: