The lights revolved and the ominous narration sounded through the speakers of the Robsham Theatre Arts Center. As the shadows of the oil rig scaffolding were cast on the stage, the images of snowfall and trees gradually disappeared. The drama "Petroleum" produced by the Theater Department of Boston College travels through time and space as the protagonist Emma Thompson (MCAS '23), telling the discovery of oil and the subsequent construction of a global industry centered on the fossil fuel industry, bringing audiences to several generations .
The performance kicked off the department's fall 2021 season on Thursday night and lasted until Sunday. The play was written by British playwright Ella Hickson and premiered in London in 2016. BC director Patricia Riggin, who is also an associate professor in the BC Department of Drama, has been playing Thinking of oil. When selecting the plays she would like to produce with her students, Riggin said she would search for works by female playwrights, which also provide political and social commentary.
Riggin said: "I hope [the audience] will take a look at the history of this oil industry." "I hope they can consider their dependence on oil and reflect on'Where is the balance?' We can't go on like this."
During the rehearsal, Hickson was able to virtually meet with Riggin and two student script consultants, namely the playwright Grace Cutler, MCAS '24 and Thompson. Hickson provided guidance and insights on her intentions behind the evolution of the two main characters: May and her daughter Amy.
The oil is divided into five parts, and each part is set at a different time and place. However, May's character guides the audience across time through plot and time. In the first part, when businessman William Whitcomb (MCAS '25) shows May an oil lamp that illuminates the stage, May sees oil and the business transaction with Wittcomb as an opportunity. In the rest of the play, Thompson plays Mei to guide the audience to understand the development of the oil industry-which becomes the background of Mei's life.
In this protagonist, Thompson is on stage every minute of the play, except that she quickly changes costumes between parts.
"I think I have been living and breathing oil for the past two months, but it is very, very worthwhile," Thompson said.
Bringing this play to the Robsham stage is an intense four-hour rehearsal process five days a week. However, when the curtain opened, the long rehearsal paid off, because after the COVID-19 pandemic stopped them last year, the actors were happy to be able to perform in front of the live audience again.
Abigail Wickman (Abigail Wickman), my sister who plays May, said: "It's been a long time since I participated in a live performance in a theater. I forgot how much the audience has influenced your performance and the vitality on the stage." -law and MCAS '24.
The set design completed by Boston designer Cristina Todesco successfully guided the audience through the five scenes of the play. Since the different screens of the play are set in five different locations - Cornwall, Tehran, Hampstead, Kirkuk and Cornwell - the screen above the stage flashes where the following scenes took place and years.
The props also remind the audience where and when the action takes place. The ideal resource that the character seeks is transferred from the oil in the old lamp to a new futuristic machine called the ring device-the world's new energy in the fifth part. The story takes place in 2051.
Almost every line is thought-provoking, and the show and its actors invite the audience to consider their own complicity in the oil industry and the exploitation of humans and the planet. The second part commented on the imperialist nature of the industry, as the locals were manipulated to obtain labor. Linking the injustices of the past to the present, the third part shows the disconnect between oil companies and the countries where they are extracting resources, because May cares little about the people living near her company's Libyan rig.
In the third part—with Hampstead in 1970 as the background—the play combines the brain examination of the oil industry with the emotional conflict between strong-willed mothers and daughters. Hickson’s feminist message shined brightly, and May insisted that her daughter Amy (Margaret White, MCAS '25) left her clueless boyfriend Nate (Javier Gusche, MCAS' 25) To open up her own path to the world. The two clashed because Amy criticized her mother's behavior as an oil company executive, and May reminded her daughter that she relied on products made from petroleum, including gasoline that powers cars and condoms.
"I think this is a good reminder that we are all responsible for climate change," Thompson said. "To some extent, this is beyond our control, but we are also responsible for holding those in power responsible for everything that happens."
In view of the drama's solution to the current sustainability problem, Thompson and Cutler contacted the environmental advocacy club on campus and asked if they would be willing to participate. The climate justice organization in BC participated in the opening party on Thursday and distributed leaflets in the lobby to share its demand for BC to abandon fossil fuels.
In the last scene of the play, the actors stood in a row, filling the entire stage—their costumes represented different periods from 1889 to 2051—and the four actors who played Amy, namely the little girl, Teenagers, young women, and middle-aged women unite. White’s last line was interrupted by the sound of a match—the audience was reminded when the theater lights went out that they were going through a period of liquidation with the oil industry.
Featured images of Steve Mooney / For The Heights
Update 9:16 PM on October 25, 2021: The name of the character William Wittcomb has been changed to the correct spelling of William Whitcomb.
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