Atmospheric Theatre: Open-Air Performance and the Environment

In 2010, the Department of Health's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants suggested that 340,000 years of life are lost annually in the UK through exposure to air pollution: the equivalent of approximately 29,000 deaths, rising to 40,000 if the effects of nitrogen dioxide are taken into account. The economic cost of exposure to air pollution across the European Union is estimated to be more than 240 billion euros each year, while a 2010 Global Burden of Disease study found that air pollution was responsible for a total of 7 million deaths worldwide. Yet, despite the scale of the threat, the Royal College of Physicians noted in 2016 that 'few people consider [air] pollution risks in their everyday lives'. If the BBC's 2017 So I Can Breathe season might be considered a partial, indirect response to the Royal College's call for a public awareness campaign about air quality, communicating the dangers of air pollution will require sustained qualitative attention to how we conceive of and experience our relationship with the air around us. Our study of atmospheric theatre will respond to this challenge, bringing a Humanities-led perspective to a field currently dominated by STEM researchers.

We are at a cultural moment in which various disciplines and practices (including literary studies and contemporary theatre) have identified a convergent interest in addressing the problems of air pollution and climate change. Our project will contribute to this global, multi-disciplinary conversation by illuminating how understanding the history and performance traditions of open-air theatre can provide insight into the atmospheric experience of attending an open-air production, and the potential for this experience to enhance an audience's awareness of their aerial environment. Uniting the aesthetic and scientific dimensions of atmospheric understanding through our focus on 'atmospheric theatre', we will demonstrate how the overlap between the historical development of an English amphitheatre performance tradition and an emergent early modern consciousness of air pollution can enable us to interrogate nostalgia-based or historically-comparative discourses of air quality, highlighting the present-day significance of this perceived relationship between dramatic performance and air quality for the UK's open-air theatres. We argue that, due to this theatrical and environmental legacy, contemporary open-air drama is especially well-suited to intervene in present-day discussions about atmospheric pollution.

The University of Exeter's commitment to developing interdisciplinary solutions to environmental change through the Environment and Sustainability Institute, and strengths in medical humanities, make it an ideal base for this research project, while our investigation into the atmospheric significance of open-air performance will benefit significantly from the complementary expertise possessed by the PI Preedy and CI O'Malley. The PI's existing skills in the literary analysis of early modern drama will support the project's attention to the historical origins of an environmentally-aware open-air theatre, which will concurrently benefit from the CI's recent work in eco-dramaturgy and her experience of working in partnership with contemporary open-air theatres. The CI's preliminary ethnographic research into how the present-day experience of open-air Shakespeare can lead to increased audience awareness of the natural environment will further contribute to our understanding of the early modern atmospheric theatre's contemporary legacy. By uniting these methods with archival study, textual analyses of the plays performed by open-air theatres, and co-produced research into practitioner methods based on partnerships with open-air theatres across the UK, we will jointly develop a holistic understanding of how an environmentally-aware model of atmospheric theatre can improve present-day awareness about air pollution and climate change.

The key intended beneficiaries of this research are:

1) Theatre practitioners with interest/expertise in open-air and amphitheatre performance;
2) Theatre venues, including the Duke's Theatre, Minack Theatre, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, and Willow Globe;
3) The education sector, especially high-school teachers and their pupils;
4) Public institutions and charitable organisations specialising in environmental education/policy, including Client Earth.

How will they benefit from this research?

1) This project will engage in the co-production of knowledge about atmospheric theatre, including through two project workshops that will bring academics and practitioners together to collectively share findings and test out theories. Practitioners will benefit from sharing expertise with others in the sector; from access to the project's ethnographic research into younger audiences' responses to open-air theatre, which will enable current practice to be enhanced through better understanding audience engagement; and from the project's research into the significance of aerial and atmospheric imagery within plays staged by contemporary open-air practitioners.

2) As above, theatre venues will benefit from the opportunity to communicate practice-based and academic expertise in the field of atmospheric and open-air theatre. By holding workshops at key open-air venues, the project will facilitate interaction between different open-air and amphitheatre spaces, raising the sector profile of specific sites and extending the possibilities for interaction between urban and rural project partners. The project website will establish an online hub for use by open-air theatre practitioners and venues, extending the international scope of the project and facilitating interaction between UK-based venues and those based elsewhere in the world: for example, the primarily US-based venues connected with the Institute of Outdoor Theatre.

3) At a time when UK educational institutions and practitioners are increasingly being encouraged to adopt a cohesive and multi-disciplinary approach to global challenges, this project will establish a project-based approach to learning about climate change and air pollution that can map onto the core requirements of the English Literature and Drama curricula. We will work closely with high-school teachers and practitioners to evaluate young adult reactions to open-air theatre performance, and this research will inform the development of resource packs for teachers wishing to introduce their pupils to the study of open-air or amphitheatre performance, especially through the medium of Shakespeare's drama. This resource pack will complement those produced by the education departments of theatres such as Shakespeare's Globe by incorporating sources relevant to often-overlooked regional venues with a long-standing history of environmentally-aware practice. The project website will feature a range of online resources to support the study of atmospheric theatre in schools around the UK, from guidance on how to explore aerial and climatic references in Shakespeare's drama within English literature lessons to interviews with theatre practitioners on their experience of staging plays in open-air and amphitheatre conditions. One of the research outputs of the project will be an article for a high-profile journal that addresses the topic of open-air theatre performance from an educational perspective.

4) This project will help to ensure that important debates about environmental policy and the public understanding of air pollution and climate change are informed by an understanding of some of the qualitative factors that can influence people's understanding of their environment, and atmospheric conditions, by introducing a Humanities-led perspective to these discussions. Organisations and charities will be provided with a model for using open-air theatre to educate young people, and adults, about air pollution.