Animal Cyborgs Onstage: Audiovisual Technology and Anthropocentric “Immediacy” in Contemporary Anglophone Climate Crisis Theatre

Abstract While climate crisis is a global phenomenon that has great effect on animal life and biodiversity, there are few examples of anglophone theatre engaging with these issues that represent animals onstage. While using live animals for such means is inadvisable, “animal cyborgs” – representations of animals through technological means – are a dramaturgical device that can be effectively used onstage. In their hybridisations of the human, the animal, and technology, they question and pose possible reconfigurations of the normative relations between these three elements. Drawing on the work of Ursula K. Heise and Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, I argue that the animal cyborg is a potent yet underused figure in climate crisis theatre and, when it is used, it is often undermined by “immediacy.” This cultural style, based on confessionalism and a removal of mediation, diverts audience attention away from global issues or interconnected concerns due to its emphasis on individuality. Exploring three recent productions – Miranda Rose Hall and Katie Mitchell’s Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction (2023), Complicité and Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2022), and Complicité and Crystal Pite’s Figures in Extinction [1.0] (2022) –, I analyse their various uses of the animal cyborg to communicate climate crisis issues and draw conclusions as to how best to use this symbol.