The Vancouver premiere of the timely and deeply human work, Eyes of the Beast, presented by Neworld Theatre, in partnership with the Climate Disaster Project, in association with the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts, and supported by Simon Fraser University, is on stage June 18 -22 at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
The 90 minute documentary-style theatre production, directed by Chelsea Haberlin with Associate Director Kelsey Kanatan Wavey, adapts the award-winning journalism of the Climate Disaster Project, bringing to life numerous testimonies from individuals across Canada who have been deeply impacted by climate-related catastrophes.
“Climate change is not a distant threat; it is an immediate reality impacting our communities,” says Chelsea Haberlin, Artistic Director, Neworld Theatre. “Through this production, I hope that audiences will more acutely understand how important it is to be prepared and how crucial it is to engage in empathy and radical care right at this vital moment. The real impact of climate disasters can lead us to turn inward in an attempt to protect ourselves. We let our fear isolate us, but this work encourages us to, instead, open our arms to those around us – to look around, get involved, pay attention. Love, help, and engage.”
The first Act of Eyes of the Beast offers the audience an opportunity to see themselves and their community reflected in a way rarely offered by traditional theatre by centering the voices and stories of everyday people: a mother and daughter in Lytton, BC, forced to flee from a fire in flip-flops, a fishing guide in the Fraser Valley, trying to rescue whatever animals he could find – including an alligator – from a flooded farmland, and an emergency room worker who describes the experience of working in the hospital during the BC heat dome of 2021 as a ‘wartime triage system’.
The real-life testimonials from climate disaster survivors across Western Canada are brought to life on stage by SFU students, who, by offering their own perspectives and voices throughout the creative process, have transformed the stories into something powerfully theatrical and immersive. With creative lighting, sound design, and projection, nature also becomes a character of its own. This staging invites audiences to not only listen to the lived impact of climate disasters, but to feel it in an embodied, sensory way — making climate change feel immediate, tangible, and real.
Act Two of each performance is a facilitated conversation that includes an invited elected official. Audiences are encouraged to share their reactions, express fears or hopes, and connect with one another in a supportive, communal environment. These conversations help break the isolation many people may feel around climate anxiety and invite audiences to imagine what real change might look like — not someday, but right now.
“It’s so easy to feel disheartened about the future,” says Sean Holman, creator of the Climate Disaster Project and Professor of Environmental and Climate Journalism at the University of Victoria in Canada. “But this production teaches us that we can survive that future together because even in the darkness of disaster, the constellations of human dignity and decency can burn all the brighter. It is that light that guides us toward a more just and equitable world.”
Eyes of the Beast plays June 18 to 21, 2025 at 7:30pm and June 21 & 22 at 2pm at the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings Street. For more information and tickets, visit neworldtheatre.com