RTW’s World Premiere “Tidy” is Anything But

Cassandra Bissell as The Detective in Renaissance Theaterworks' TIDY. Photo by Ross Zentner.

When the subject of climate change comes up these days, it feels overwhelming. The problem is too big. Our individual actions towards environmental conservation feel so small. The dire consequences of global warming have been predicted for decades, but we have ignored them. Now we have procrastinated so long on addressing the problem, it may be too late. If it’s unchecked, over the next century many, many species will die. The icebergs will continue to melt. The weather will become even more erratic and violent. Islands will be swallowed up by rising oceans. People will be forced from their homes. We could be approaching the sixth mass extinction in earth’s history.

It’s no wonder that the main character in Renaissance Theaterworks’ world premiere production of Tidy is feeling anxious. Directed by Elizabeth Margolius, Kristin Idaszak’s poetic, funny, thought-provoking play about climate change, mass consumption, black holes, Marie Kondo, Philip Marlowe detective novels, gimlets, library books, government conspiracy theories, the last butterfly, secret messages, and how we compensate for a lack of love in our lives will run at the Theater at 255 South Water Street through April 16.

As she sorts through the piles and piles of her possessions that overwhelm the stage, It is hard to pinpoint the moment when the main character in Tidy – a luminous Cassandra Bissell – becomes an unreliable narrator. Simply called “the detective,” she seems perfectly rational at the start. Her task for the day is mundane and easily relatable; while her geologist wife Joy is at work, she is cleaning the house to get ready for friends to come over for a party. And to be honest, the mounds of discarded things in the apartment have gotten out of control. Boxes upon boxes are covered with dusty objects that have outlasted their usefulness – an antique Edison phonograph, a manual typewriter, an old lamp, and tchotchkes from dozens of antique stores, flea markets, museum gift shops and national parks. (Intriguing, stark scenic design by Jeffrey D. Kmiec.)

Although the task seems overwhelming, it’s time for her to find happiness in order and exert control on her environment. Talking to herself while tidying the flat, she makes judgments about which of her possessions still spark joy. As she picks up each random object – an avocado slicer, a sweater, a book – her questions, conundrums, and observations sound reasonable.

But set in the near future – a year from now – we slowly learn that the detective’s world is very, very different from ours. As she describes it to us, life in the Midwest has devolved into a dystopian nightmare caused by climate change. Cataclysmic weather events have ravaged the country. Most animals and plants are dying or extinct. Synthetic food is made in a lab in Wyoming. It’s not safe to go outside, into a polluted blackness. And the government is putting climate change refugees into relocation camps. In fact, tonight may be the last chance to have a party – considering everyone is officially confined to their homes for their own safety.

The parallels of cleaning a house using the Marie Kondo method and taking care of the mess we’ve made of the planet are clear and . . . well. . . tidy. Just like the detective deciding to put the first few superfluous items into a box, every enormous job needs a bold first step. With a little determination, she demonstrates that we can all let go of the stuff in our lives that’s unnecessary. We can stop trying to fill the emptiness in our souls with mindless consumption. We can be happier with less.

While she’s deciding which items stay and which get donated or taken to a landfill, the narrator also talks a lot about geology – things she’s learned about the evolution of the world from her wife Joy. The earth’s cycles of life and near total extinction over millions of years. The small ripple in the earth’s crust that human civilization will be reduced to, when our time on the planet is over. And though, as the narrator says, it’s difficult to talk about time when your partner thinks of life in geological terms, the idea that climate change is a pattern that the world has survived many times before is comforting.

But the further the detective veers away from science and into stories of her own making, the less her world makes sense. We can hear the rat-a-tat-tat of her typewriter when she’s putting her own new sentences together – a disconnected tapping that drives her crazy. (Clever sound design by Christopher Kriz.) As she sifts through hazy thoughts, trying to put the narrative of her life in order, it becomes decidedly . . . untidy. But because we only hear about her reality through these stories, it’s impossible for us to sort out what’s true. Has she been drugged? Is the government out to get her? Has Joy turned against her? Where is Joy? Is there going to be a party tonight? Is there anyone else on the earth who is still alive?

Before you go see Tidy, it may be helpful to do some reading on a relatively new condition called “solastalgia.” About halfway through the 75-minute monologue, the narrator tells you that she’s been diagnosed with this specific kind of melancholy, a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change. While the symptoms vary, they can include restless sleep, anxiety, depression, feeling unsafe, grief, guilt, helplessness, hopelessness, and loss of identity, among others. Maybe that’s why she has trouble remembering things. Maybe that’s why she thinks her parents are trying to send her coded messages about escaping. Maybe that’s why she’s desperate to get her story straight.

You might also want to watch your favorite hard boiled detective movie before seeing Tidy, or pick up a copy of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, which also features heavily in the latter half of the play. The detective tells us that she started writing a mystery novel, but never finished it because she had trouble stringing clues together. But she also talks a lot about the necessity of stories in times of uncertainty, and the sense of wellbeing one gets when putting seemingly random objects together to form meaning – using all the unrelated clues to solve a bigger mystery. And the more she tries to link objects together, the less meaning she makes.

Tidy is not a play that provides answers, or a feel-good, happy ending. There’s no moral. There’s no map for us to follow as we all collectively deal with global warming. Instead Tidy is a slowly unspooling collage of absurdism, science fiction, film noir, and catastrophe story – like a Becket character abandoned in a garbage dump, as part of a “Black Mirror” episode set in a dark, colorless future. And for some audiences the lack of a clear message (outside of impending doom) is going to be frustrating. For a work that seems to want audiences to engage with the problem of climate change, that ambiguity may be counter-productive.

But at the same time, it would be ridiculous to produce a play about future environmental collapse that didn’t require serious thought on our part. Perhaps Tidy is as complex and perplexing as the problem itself. Maybe it’s important to show that a desperate, last minute escape out the window with a backpack as no escape at all.

Tidy is part of the World Premiere Wisconsin festival of new work.

Post Script

RTW’s World Premiere “Tidy” is Anything But