Everybody Loses

This seventy-minute performance explores how philosopher Timothy Morton’s concept of ‘dark ecology’ might operate as a dramaturgical device for staging the Anthropocene Extinction. Drawing upon the self-documented death by snakebite of American herpetologist Dr Karl Patterson Schmidt (1957) as a motivating metaphor, Everybody Loses cycles structurally through what Morton describes as dark ecology’s layers of ‘depression’, ‘ontological mystery’, and ‘sweetness’. By ‘looping’ into relation Schmidt’s ‘death diary’, biography, serpent mythology, science, history, and pop culture; the performance seeks to ‘weird’ space and time and evoke ecological death. It is contextualised by ecological performance practices and academic enquiry within the fields of Performance Studies and the Environmental Humanities. It offers new ways of thinking about arts science communication in relation to climate change and innovates making strategies for ecological performance. The dramaturgy, text, scenography, and direction evolved through iterative processes of co-creation between Tom Payne and Tobias Manderson-Galvin. Everybody Loses represents a pattern of collaborative climate themed practice developed together under the name Doppelgangster (2015-present). Preparatory work occurred between October 2016 – November 2017. The ‘output’ features video documentation from a showing at the Performance Lab, Sheffield Hallam University (March 2018). The performance toured internationally in the UK, mainland Europe, South East Asia, and Australia, during which time it underwent scenographic development in response to unique performance sites (June 2018 - September 2018). Everybody Loses is performed by Tom Payne and features an experimental Jazz score created by Australian duo Maria Moles and Adam Halliwell. The videography was developed with ecological filmmaker Sam Christie. The work was developed with support from Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, and MKA Theatre of New Writing. It premiered in the Studio, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, 23 November 2017. Methodology, dissemination, and contextual writings and responses are offered within the supporting materials.