Alvin Sputnik’s tool belt is a thing of wonder. Armed with just lights, a bubble machine and a custom-made drawing app, this intrepid explorer will turn the College of Charleston’s Emmett Robinson Theatre into an immersive deep-sea world.
The title character of ‘Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer’, an award-winning production from Australian theater company The Last Great Hunt, uses puppetry, animation, live music and inventive stagecraft to imagine a flooded future shaped by climate change.
The family-friendly show comes to Spoleto Festival USA for performances May 23 to May 25.
What begins as an inventive visual spectacle gradually unfolds into a story about grief, love, survival and humanity in the face of climate change.
“The show suckers you in with being a bit cute and whimsical,” says Last Great Hunt cofounder Tim Watts, who also plays the title role in this one-man show. “But I think people are often surprised by how emotional they get.”
For one thing, the subject matter skews a bit darker than your typical piece of children’s theater. “Alvin Sputnik,” which has been performed more than 400 times around the world over the last 17 years, takes place in a world where billions have died due to the adverse effects of climate change.
After his wife dies, the title character attempts a last-ditch effort to save the human race and follows her soul down to the underworld. This turns into a deep-sea journey to help relocate humans and find a new place for them to live.
The production creates a post-apocalyptic world for viewers, including skyscrapers where humans now live on top of and deep-sea environments below.
Watts, who is also the creator, writer, animator and performer behind “Alvin Sputnik,” is from Perth, Australia, which is considered one of the most isolated major cities in the world.
This is one reason why touring the show is inherently carbon-intensive.
“When it’s possible, we travel with electric vehicles for ground transport,” Watts said. “Just last year, we did a two-month tour around Western Australia in an EV.”
When traveling by land is not possible, The Last Great Hunt calculates the carbon it creates and offsets it with companies like Native Carbon. The touring production also travels with a minimal set and crew.
“With just two bags for the set, which is often just excess luggage, the show has a much smaller footprint than a lot of other touring shows,” he says. And the company has reused much of the same set and props, much of which was upcycled in the first place, over the past 17 years.
Following each performance, Spoleto will present a make-your-own-puppet-explorer workshop that connects Alvin Sputnik’s adventures directly back to Charleston. Using recycled materials, participants will create their own puppet in order to engage on such topics as local sea life, sustainability and coastal preservation.
“Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer” has received a variety of theater awards all over the world, but Watts says audiences’ own exposure to the elements can affect their reactions to the show.
“Certain countries or cities have had more raw responses, as there have been too many times where I have performed the show either during or just after some climate disaster, where many lives have recently been lost to flooding, fires or storms,” Watts says. “So that theme and context for this love story is very potent for some people.”
But regardless of circumstance, he said the show resonates widely.
“Even if people don’t have that too-real connection to climate disaster, I think we all are wrestling with the anxiety of this beautiful planet that we love changing, and how we can hang on to our humanity and the things we love.”
IF YOU WANT TO GO:
“Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer” runs May 23-25 twice a day, once at 12:30 p.m. and once at 2:30 p.m. at Emmett Robinson Theater at the College of Charleston. Performances last 45 minutes, followed by an interactive workshop. Admission: $30 for adults and $15 for children 13 and under.
Cristina Reid is an arts journalism and communications graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
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