I was just listening to a lecture about film that explained how during World War II, there were some notable films that preferred to praise the importance of fighting for a cause than for personal desires. And then, I walked into this play.
“Do you love this planet?” is a three-person play revolving around Rachel (Lucy Lowe), a 30-something mother who we meet as she wakes up next to her husband Schumann. She’s proud to have recently been appointed the position of PR officer for an environmental defence group, FFF. The group’s slogan, “Do you love this planet?”, has been on her mind. She’s taking it very seriously, as one should, really, except that so many of us don’t! As the play progresses, we understand how each word in the slogan has its importance, and how we should really ask ourselves whether we love our planet like we do our children.
Rachel’s teenage son Alan, hooked on his smartphone and of the generation that no longer believes in privacy, has a curiously close relationship to his mother, and the trio who live under the same roof seem less and less suited to each other as we learn about them. While screens show the characters being filmed, sometimes they seem more like animals than humans.
