A Gretchen Question for climate change
Posted on: 31st January 2023
The Gretchen Question, now available to watch online for a limited time only, made its debut last autumn on the banks of the Thames at Master Shipwright’s House.
In this video, director Melly Still and Designer EM Parry discuss the choices and decision behind this project. When you watch The Gretchen Question, what becomes clear is that the production is a site-specific work: rather than playing at a purpose-built venue, it was be presented in the garden of the Master Shipwright’s House. One of the few remaining parts of Deptford’s royal dockyard, the House was founded by Henry VIII in 1513 and became one of the most important shipbuilding yards in the world before closing in 1869.
As audiences sit down to enjoy The Gretchen Question, from the comfort of their home and from a computer screen rather than on the banks of the Thames, we hope these questions that informed the production inform the audiences experience.
In the words of Melly Still and EM Parry:
“When work first began on this piece, the aim was to seek out a Gretchen question for human- caused climate change. To attempt to strip away our defences and send ourselves to uncomfortable places. The shape of those questions felt very different six years ago. And even then the problem already felt so big, so unstoppable, and so impersonal that finding questions to move ourselves as individuals proved painfully elusive.
So we found ourselves changing the framework of this question-asking, and began instead to seek out the core human traits that have led us to this place. This journey led us to explore a basic human urge, which has been expressed in twisted ways throughout Western history and sits at the heart of many of our largest prevailing structures. It is the need to grow. The question is harder to express but somewhere along the line is just as simple – how might we tune in to expressions of this urge practised by many of the planet’s most ancient cultures, instead of manifesting it through personal ownership and expansionism.