Arctic Oil review - should you put your family first or the planet?

Traverse, EdinburghClare Duffy's play skirts the big issues as an ecowarrior and her mother clash in a locked bathroom Opening in the week the UN has made dire warnings about climate change, Clare Duffy's two-hander about an ecowarrior and her conservative mother could hardly be more timely. It pits Neshla Caplan, as a young activist preparing to join a Greenpeace-style protest at an Arctic Circle oil rig, against Jennifer Black as her head-in-the-sand mother, who would sooner her daughter put the safety of her family before that of the planet. For all its topicality, however, Arctic Oil skirts around the issues before being diverted into a schmaltzy generation-gap drama.Every playwright needs a reason to keep their characters on stage and Duffy's solution is unambiguous: the older woman lures her daughter into the bathroom, locks the door and swallows the key. It's only the first of a sequence of events which, however unlikely, have the merit of keeping the two women in the same place, the better to vent their pent-up frustration and explain their political perspectives. Continue reading...