Atlantis – Welsh climate crisis drama inspired by real village's fate

Welsh climate crisis drama "Atlantis" inspired by real village

The play "Atlantis", staged at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, is based on the real experience of the residents of Fairbourne. In 2014, Fairbourne residents learned that the local council had decided that maintaining sea defences was no longer tenable, and instead, the village would be abandoned to the sea by 2055 as part of a "managed retreat". Although the timeline has since shifted and been disputed, this situation inspired Emily White's play.

The story centers on fisherman Bryn and his wife Gwen (played by Richard Elfyn and Vivien Parry). The action spans from 2011 to 2039, dramatizing what has already occurred and imagining what is next as weather systems and a community both unravel.

The review notes lyricism in the play's sense of time, from the daily to the generational to the geological. However, the beats of the domestic drama through which this catastrophe is refracted are often contrived. Dramatic tension is propelled by conveniently antagonistic exchanges, and exposition is overstated. The play gestures towards deeper issues such as the burden of environmental consciousness and the imperatives of activism, but these feel underexplored.

The committed cast does well to fill the gaps. Parry's matriarchal Gwen is an impassioned foil for Elfyn's curmudgeonly tendencies. Catrin Aaron as daughter Claire, Alfie Llewellyn and Eirlys Lovell-Jones as grandchildren Phillip and Rhiannon sustain a convincing if sometimes brusque family dynamic, mollified by Sara Otung's quiet dignity as Phillip's girlfriend Astrid.

Directed by Guy Jones, the production occupies a register hesitant to be documentary but insufficiently figurative to be global. As a result, Wales is sentimentalised as a timeless land of myths and legends, instead of a modern nation that, like every other country with coastline, will have to make decisions about climate collapse.