End to Begin: When theatre becomes a climate issue

This article is a joint front-page publication between illuminem and the leading German-speaking newspaper Der Standard. Read this article in German here.

For decades, science has measured, modelled, and warned us of the threats our planet faces, and yet, the world has not listened. Temperatures continue to rise; emissions are skyrocketing. Facts alone are no longer enough.

In all of this, art emerges as a surprising alternative - as an avenue complementing science to create awareness and action. In other words, while data has struggled to move hearts in a time of fatigue and fragmentation, artistic expression becomes sustainability’s carrier for truths.

I know, as a reader of the Greentech section, you might not have expected to hear about art. But, fundamentally, the ecological crisis is not only a technical failure, but a moral and behavioural one. A successful sustainable transition requires trust, imagination, and responsibility, and is consequently a cultural challenge as much as a technological one.

“End to Begin” - an Austrian world-acclaimed theatre production by Gloria Benedikt - is built around this very conviction. The show is returns to stage from 26 to 29 January 2026 at the Odeon Theatre in Vienna.

The play, which I am honoured to contribute to, imagines a moment in which a future generation visits the present day in order to understand why the world they inhabit is the way it is. They have been sent to ask a simple but uncomfortable question: why have we done nothing to prevent the climate catastrophe?

The stage will bring together representatives of the complexity of today’s world: a politician (Christoph Wiederkehr, Austria’s Minister of Education), a scientist (John Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis), an activist (Katharina Rogenhofer, co-founder of Fridays for Future Austria), an academic (Reinhard Steurer, Professor of Climate Policy at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences), and a greentech entrepreneur (the author of this article and CEO of illuminem.com).

They will share the stage with an outstanding artistic cast, featuring some of the most promising actors of the next generation of Austrian theatre - Bety Aubrechtová, Felix Frank, Gordan Kukic, and Xenia Samstag - alongside dancers from the Vienna State Opera Ballet, Robert Weithas and Marietta Kro, whose performances bring breathtaking movement to the evening. The show even concludes with a powerful finale by soprano Sara Casey, whose voice brings the production to an unforgettable close.

All of this brings to an obvious answer: an admission of our fragility. We all have no justification for what is happening to our planet.

The show is even more pertinent now that the green wave has lost momentum. People are turning their backs - exhausted, disillusioned, overwhelmed. Misinformation spreads faster than the truth, as false promises drown out those genuinely willing to confront our challenges head-on.

As for me, I will anticipate on these pages what the audience will hear on that day: in a time of political inertia and public exhaustion, there is still room for optimism - not in denial of reality, but as a form of resistance. In 2026, more renewable energy will be produced globally than ever before. Hundreds of thousands of people are committing themselves to nature conservation. Across societies, new initiatives are taking shape to improve media literacy and experiment with democratic renewal, as startups work tirelessly to innovate against climate change - from carbon capture to ecosystem restoration.

But progress, on its own, still doesn’t answer the deeper question: how do we sustain the will to act when attention is fractured and trust is thin? This is where “End to Begin” steps in, indeed not as a lecture or a manifesto, but an invitation to think together. 

Throughout the performance, the audience is asked questions that are both intimate and collective: What have you lost to global warming? What matters to you deeply enough that you hope it will still exist in the future? What would a world look like in which we succeeded in the transition toward a regenerative society? Through theatre, dance, music, and conversation, the past, present, and future merge into a single moment of reflection.

As the play’s author and director Gloria Benedikt puts it: “We need to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in, rather than simply accepting the world as it is. We need planetary humanism – and this work is a contribution towards it.”