F*ck the Polar Bears (Bush Theatre)

Personally, I feel sorry for the polar bears. Life gets harder with every passing day and melting ice-cap. But the point of Tanya Ronder‘s astringent, surreal new comedy is that we’re all in the same boat, bears and all. The planet is eating itself and may only survive for a few thousand years.

So, with married couple Gordon and Serena about to step up a social gear in a riverside house at Hampton, thanks to his promotion in the energy business, the dilemma is one of civic responsibility versus personal well-being: energy-saving is all very well, but the more they use, the more Gordon gets paid.

Ronder may have thought of Henry’s defence of good writing in Tom Stoppard‘s The Real Thing: "Save the gerund, screw the whale." Saving the planet may now take precedence over saving our own language, though it’s hard to see how switching off lights and recycling our plastic bags is going to make all that much difference to either.

The play crackles along – literally so, as Chiara Stephenson‘s skeletal design sparks sporadically with electrical static – for one hundred minutes, with Andrew Whipp‘s Gordon feeling the heat and imagining polar bears behind the sofa while Susan Stanley‘s lithe, keep-fit Serena (she’s into a right-on regimen of t’ai chi, yoga and pilates, natch) is emotionally decomposing; the worry of the world is ruining their sex lives.

Every now and then their seven year-old daughter, Rachel, runs across the stage in a tutu or a polar bear suit. This drives Gordon even pottier. His mouth starts twitching with a mind of its own. Rachel acquires a hamster, and that becomes a problem, too. No way is Serena having a second child. And the Icelandic au pair Blundhilde (Salóme R Gunarsdóttir, who really is Icelandic) has issues with everyone, not least her own girlfriend, the unseen "anti-fracking munster" who is bombarding the house with eggs.

I wanted to enjoy the play so much more than I did. But the excellent notion of an apocalyptic global farce played out in close-up with our aspirational human representatives (Ronder dedicates her play to "the shared art of keepy-uppy") who both exploit and try and conserve the planet’s resources never quite penetrates the theatrical ozone layer.

The tipping point is the revelation of political collusion in Gordon’s capitalist adventurism, but the play then veers towards an uneasy domestic compromise. The house is up for sale before the move to Hampton, and is being re-decorated for the market by Gordon’s brother Clarence (Jon Foster), a recovering druggie whom Gordon has helped through rehab; I think (not sure) Ronder is implying that this practical charity is preferable to all the chest-beating angst about the rain forests: best to live close, and kindly, than try and save the world? And the play’s most riveting scene is one of dispute and soul-bearing between the two brothers.

F*ck The Polar Bears runs at the Bush Theatre until 24 October.