During the heat dome of June 2021, Carter Gulseth — an actor who performs in costume at the B.C. legislature — vividly recalls ditching his suit jacket, then vest, and eventually being treated for heat stroke.
“It was about mid-morning that I realized we shouldn’t be there,” said Gulseth, a member of the Parliamentary Players theatre group. “You could see the heat just radiating off the cobblestones. Like in a movie about the desert. It was strange. We shouldn’t have been there.”
Gulseth, like many other British Columbians, was unprepared when temperatures spiked above 40 C in the last week of June 2021. But despite sleepless nights and increasingly “woozy” days, he kept working, until one day in the halls of the legislature he was overcome.
“I just immediately started vomiting,” said Gulseth, who was led by legislature security to a first-aid room. He began shivering and hyperventilating and his hands had an intense feeling of pins and needles.
“I was oscillating back and forth between hysterical laughter at just the drop of a hat and fully weeping, tears just streaming down my face.”
Gulseth’s story, as originally told to Naomi Duska, is one of many featured in a new play documenting personal experiences related to climate-change-caused heatwaves, fire and floods.
Presented by Vancouver-based Neworld Theatre, the play — Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories — starts a six-day run at the University of Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre on Monday.
The play is based on the Climate Disaster Project, a “teaching newsroom” started in 2021 by Sean Holman, the Wayne Crookes Professor in Environmental and Climate Journalism, that focuses on telling and investigating the stories of those affected by climate change.
This year, it was recognized by the National Newspaper Awards as a journalism project that doesn’t fit into its existing 23 categories, “but had an exceptional impact on the Canadian news industry.”
The interviews were conducted by students at the University of Victoria and eight other post-secondary institutions involved with the disaster project.
Many of the stories are stark, like that of registered nurse Michelle Feist, who escaped her home in Lytton moments before the town burned to the ground.
“There were flames six to eight feet high on either side of my truck. The smoke was so dense. I just kept going,” she told interviewers Aldyn Chwelos and Christina Gervais. “And I knew in the back of my head somewhere that Lytton was gone.”
Chwelos, the project’s managing editor, said while there are stories of loss, there are also many accounts of people keeping each other safe. “There’s so much heart in them. And bringing that into the world is part of what we’re trying to do,” said Chwelos.
Alen Dominguez, managing director for Neworld Theatre, said while British Columbians have experienced much loss because of recent heat, fire, smoke and floods, “the story we’re bringing to the audience is how people supported one another through those disasters — and the need for more support.”
Neworld artistic director Chelsea Haberlin said great care was taken to work with survivors to ensure the script truly reflected “what they experienced firsthand.”
Every performance will include a survey and talkback session, giving audiences the opportunity to reflect on the stories they’ve heard and share their own experiences of climate disasters.
Also, after each performance, former, current and would-be politicians will share their thoughts about the impact of climate disasters on the province and “how we can survive them together,” said Holman.
The lineup includes former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister George Abbott on Sept. 16; B.C. Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Lana Popham on Sept. 17; B.C. Conservative Nanaimo-Lantzville candidate Gwen O’Mahony on Sept. 18; B.C. Green Leader Sonia Furstenau on Sept. 20; B.C. Conservative candidate for Oak Bay-Gordon Head Stephen Andrew at the Sept. 21 matinée; and Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock at the 7:30 p.m. Sept. 21 performance.
“So many of the survivors we work with feel they’ve been abandoned by people in power,” said Holman. “And the fact people in power are coming to listen to their stories is an important part of healing that wound.”
In his story, Gulseth talks about his concerns about climate change and solutions to the climate crisis, including a large carbon tax on corporations.
With Thursday’s announcement by Premier David Eby that a re-elected NDP government would dump the province’s long-standing consumer carbon tax if the federal government drops its requirement for the law, discussions following the play promise to be spicy.
The B.C. Conservatives have long promised to scrap the consumer carbon tax.
Tickets to Eyes of the Beast from Sept. 16 to 21 range from $18 to $34 and can be purchased by phone at 250-721-8000 or online through UVic’s Phoenix Theatre at finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/mainstage/2024-2025-mainstage-season/eyes-of-the-beast/
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