Challenging his audience on climate change
BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Gabriel Rodriguez’s show “Jack of
Cups” asks audiences not just to
worry about climate change but
to do something about it.
Performed in the Pete, the groundfl
oor theater at The Flea Theater in
Tribeca, “Jack of Cups,” begins on the Island
of Higher Ground. That’s a stretch
of land where humans gather each year
to listen to the story of “the wave that
ate the world,” told by a traveling storyteller,
Jack of Cups (Rodriguez). In this
post-apocalyptic world, land is scarce
and communities are built around water
fi ltration systems.
Jack then tells his listeners their
world’s creation story, as Effi e (Kayla
Yee) interprets the story through dance.
He heard the story from an old witch
named Ursula he met in faraway land
called Sagebrush after some playing
children led him to her home in a series
of underground caves.
The audience then learns how this
new world was born. When the Earth
was inhabited by too many people with
too much “extra stuff,” the ocean swallowed
the Earth’s land.
Though certainly timely, a story about
a world destroyed by humans admittedly
is not new. But “Jack of Cups” offers a
more hopeful ending to a world almost
destroyed by climate change, and features
a few tropes. Jack’s secondhand
telling of how the Earth was destroyed
and guidance from a group of children
is reminiscent of the fi lm “Mad Max: Beyond
Thunderdome.” A world consumed
by the ocean is extremely similar to the
premise of the 1995 fi lm “Waterworld,”
where the majority of the planet is underwater
after the polar ice caps melt.
But the importance of “Jack of Cups,”
and why audiences should watch it, is
how it pushes viewers from being complacent
when it comes to preventing climate
change. Besides, according to the
United Nations, humanity has less than
12 years to get its act together before irreversible
damage from climate change.
Walking toward the performance
Gabriel Rodriguez, the playwright of and main character in “Jack of Cups.”
space, audience members fi rst pass along
a path of plastic rings cut from water
bottles that leads to the theater’s backyard,
which is decorated with towers of
strung-together plastic water bottles.
At the end of the show, Jack addresses
the audience and asks viewers to examine
what “stuff” in their life is necessary.
The show’s program is e-mailed
to audience members, along with a link
to a resource packet on how to disrupt,
engage and redefi ne climate action in
one’s community. It’s a reminder that
everyone can take steps toward creating
a better and cleaner world.
“Jack of Cups” will be performed at
The Flea Theater, 20 Thomas St., until
June 8. For more information and tickets,
visit thefl ea.org
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