Profit, pollution, civil unrest and contact lenses: oil seeps its way into the lives of millions. It’s a big issue – so big that Grid Iron theatre’s new theatre work is set in a dockside warehouse
It’s not a velvet curtain that rises on Grid Iron’s Crude, but a great roll of corrugated iron. It ascends with an industrial grind and clatter, opening the doorway to Shed No 39, a warehouse on the Port of Dundee estate, a little-seen landscape of cranes, exploration rigs and fiercely lit ships.
As we step inside, our path is laid out between two rows of safety helmets, their clean white surfaces picked out by Paul Claydon’s low-level lighting, drawing us across an empty expanse towards a stage of gantries, cages and oil drums. An abseiler dangles from the cavernous ceiling, figures flit past in hi-vis jackets and digits race upwards on the back wall, counting the barrels of oil extracted from the earth since the performance began (answer: a lot).
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Source: Guardian Environment