Four Plays for a Planet in Peril

Earth’s peril is portrayed differently in each piece. In the first—the poetic and dreamlike Water Spirits Colloquy—two Greek demigods and a legendary Native American spirit meet to share their torment over the ravaging of Earth’s waters by humans and ultimately conspire to exact revenge. They interact amidst spectacular underwater and terrestrial imagery and in scenes of environmental destruction that build to a dramatic ending.

In The Cage, three characters—a boss, a middle manager, and a worker—argue with a mixture of stunning insight and staggering myopia in what might be described as a class war in nine minutes. The highly stylized acting verges on comedy as it highlights the societal conflicts that contribute to inaction on climate issues.

The raw emotion and ultimate sweetness of Reprieve are a counterpoint to the power and intensity of the pieces that precede and follow it. An indigenous man in despair over the demise of his culture and the Earth is saved by the caring concern and common decency of people he barely knows. This work’s inclusion in the series gives a hint of what the films’ creators see as virtues that might help save the planet.

According to Roscoe, a long-time environmentalist, as well as playwright, “Our goal is to draw attention to the uncomfortable reality that our whole way of life, in effect, creates the Earth’s climate, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. We employ a range of theatrical techniques—heightened language, humor, outrage, satire, hyperbole, melodrama—as well as exciting new film technologies to entertain and engage viewers and provoke awareness, discussion and, we hope, constructive action.”

In The Warning, the cycle ends with an explosion of imagery and over-the-top theatrics, noted by Roscoe as “inspired by 1930s German expressionist George Grosz.” In this hyperbolized eco-feminist cartoon, Roscoe herself, as Woman/Earth, takes to the stage and reacts viscerally to the assaults on her body by the heat and fire of fossil fuels and confronts the puppet politicians and corporate overlords responsible. The Warning is an official finalist in three categories for the Independent Short Film Awards in L.A.: Best Experimental Short, Best Original Story, and Best Ensemble Cast.

In addition to Roscoe, the cast includes nine other beloved Massachusetts-based actors: Tom Wolfson, Judith Partelow (courtesy of SAG), Rod Owens, Karen McPherson, Constance Wilkinson, Cleo Zani, Geof Newton, Olivia Thompson, and LeVane Harrington.

The three experimental, non representational “shorts”—Water Spirits Colloquy, The Cage, and The Warning—were composed and filmed in a studio in Dennis during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic by Janet Murphy Robertson. She filmed the only “realistic” work of the four, Reprieve, on site in Dennis. All four films are produced by Shoestring Virtual Theater, a new venture (founded in 2021) of Robertson’s marketing and production firm ArtistsAndMusicians.org. The works employ a mix of techniques and technologies native to theater, film, and TV, including both traditional and green-screen filming/recording, cartooning, sound effects, special effects, musical scores, virtual video and photographic backgrounds, and black-and-white, as well as color, styling. The films will be available for online viewing at a later date and details will be posted at ArtistsAndMusicians.org and elsewhere.

FOUR PLAYS FOR A PLANET IN PERIL is supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council (Towns of Brewster and Dennis).

Lee Roscoe is an award-winning playwright, environmentalist and journalist and currently a correspondent for Artscope Magazine and Provincetown Magazine. She is a former Cape Cod and Massachusetts environmental activist and environmental educator. She has long-time ties to the environmental science and education community as a Woods Hole Ocean Science Journalism Fellow, a recipient of numerous WHSTEPS (Woods Hole Science, Technology and Education Partnership grants), an Eisenhower grant for creating nature/curriculum, a Massachusetts legislature commendation and EPA award and other awards and grants. As a journalist Lee Roscoe has covered many environmental stories, regionally and nationally (some cited in scientific journals) for publications such as Massachusetts Wildlife Magazine, New York Conservationist, Oceanus online (WHOI’s magazine), Sierra, and Natural History Magazine. Her theater writing has been praised as “brilliant,” “powerful and important theater,” by such notables as the artistic director of Shakespeare Theatre Company, D.C., Michael Kahn; the founder of New York’s Living Theater, Judith Malina; playwright David Hare; and the late Howard Zinn, as well as other theater greats and public intellectuals. Early in her career, she worked as an Equity actress Off-Broadway and in indie films.

Janet Murphy Robertson is a former New York executive and management consultant and the founder and executive director of ArtistsAndMusicians.org, a firm that spotlights creative and socially conscious people and produces plays, films, and musical events. Her earlier films about social issues include Journeys in the Light, Untold Stories of Cape Cod, produced with Zion Union Heritage Museum (Hyannis) and Icons of the Civil Rights Movement, based on Pamela Chatterton-Purdy and Rev. Dr. David A. Purdy’s landmark exhibition by this name.