WEBVTT - Best of: 2C or not 2C? That is the question. Climate summits as Shakespeare would see them. 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:02.920 Hi, it's Ukshat. We are on the cusp of COP 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.840 twenty nine and the US election, and so we wanted 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.280 to bring you a favorite past episode that feels particularly 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.959 timely right now, even though it's looking at events that 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.720 happened nearly thirty years ago. We made the show in July. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.479 It's about a play that dramatizes the nineteen ninety seven 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.560 climate summit in Kyoto. That meeting COP three was historic 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:29.639 for reasons you'll hear. COP twenty nine, taking place in 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.320 Azerbaijan the week after next is likely to be historic too. 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:36.720 One thing we'll be watching for at COP twenty nine 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.360 is what direction the US takes after its people have 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.360 elected a new president. If that president is Donald Trump, 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:49.360 it could have disastrous consequences for global climate diplomacy. You 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.680 might remember what my colleague Gendiluhi told me about this 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:53.320 last month. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:58.240 Trump could actually go further and abandoned the UNF Triple C, 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.840 the Framework Convention on Climate Change that underpins it. And 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:05.560 if leaving Paris is a potentially temporary blow to climate diplomacy, 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.119 then leaving the UNF Triple C would be a figurative 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.679 bomb and climate diplomacy with years of fallout and what's 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.240 you know interesting about this is truly the potentially long 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.880 repercussions for the US and for the world. 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:20.399 You can find a link to that episode in the 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.520 show notes. And by the way, next week we'll be 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:27.200 putting out our episode on Friday instead of Thursday because 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.840 there's a big election happening. For now, enjoy the episode 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:37.320 about Kyoto. Welcome to Zero. I am actadrati. This week 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:52.840 climate negotiations as entertainment. This sentence. Countries are urged to 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.279 take immediate actions to control the risks of climate change. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:57.520 Surely we can all agree on this. 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.320 No mean countries are urged. I'm sorry it is urgent. 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:02.320 I feel urged. 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:03.200 I don't feel urged. 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:03.880 Do you feel urged? 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.440 I don't feel urgent? Couraged? 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.320 Second, urged is a red line for us. Courage invited, 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.840 of course, No, we should all feel urged. 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.400 Imediate got the media. Countries are urged to take actions 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.160 to control the risk of climate What. 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:18.000 Are these actions? 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.080 An idealistic promise made today could close a factory in 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:22.639 Detroit tomorrow. 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.400 At this with ass on actions that would be economically 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:26.320 beneficial as well. 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:27.040 No regrets. 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.840 We second that choice. The line or whatever is left 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:31.080 of It is a great. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.760 A question for you, Actually, how many cops have you 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:36.120 been to? 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.120 Three? The last three? 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:40.359 They sound like marathon events. 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:41.280 Yeah they are. 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:47.160 They are two weeks long and almost always overrun, and 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.880 everything gets shut down by the last few days and 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.160 you're out of coffee and energy and you're exhausted. It's 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.079 sort of all cops, I think, not just the last three. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:00.399 It sounds a little drudgerous to be honest. I mean, 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.360 I'm not a fan of a very long meeting, so 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.480 I have to admit. When I heard that the Royal 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.680 Shakespeare Company was putting on a new play about Cop three, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.680 which was held in Kyoto, I was very intrigued, but 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.120 also felt a little bit of trepidation about what it 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:16.400 is we would be sitting through. 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:18.960 Yeah, me too. When I was told that there is 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.240 a play about the Kyoto Protocol, I was surprised. You know, 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.079 there is a lot of drama at these places. It's 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.079 high stakes. All countries are involved, the fate of the 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.360 planet is involved. But it is really boring in the 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:40.080 fact that it's negotiations done over text and over words 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.760 that most people don't understand, and it's all a bit chaotic, 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.160 and so how do you make that entertaining? That was 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:49.760 the question to me when I heard there was a 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:50.440 play about it. 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:53.440 Today's episode is all about the play. We'll be hearing 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.200 from the director and one of the actors, and also 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:00.000 from someone who attended those Kyoto negotiations in nineteen nine 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.280 twenty seven. And yeah, it was long, but it didn't 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.040 feel too long. I thought part of what made it 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.440 compelling was the way it was staged. The stage is 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.760 shaped like a conference table. Members of the audience sit 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.600 around it, so they're kind of made to feel like 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:17.560 they're part of the negotiations. 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:21.960 The playwrights had to figure out how to shrink tenures 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:26.440 of history and two weeks of negotiations into a couple 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.400 of hours, and they had to do it in a 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.919 fixed setting. So the choice of the stage was important, 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.800 and I asked one of the plays directors, Justin Martin, 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.200 about why the stage was shaped that way. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.360 It's a conference table in which a lot of the 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.280 action happens around it, within the audience, but also yeah, 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.160 on top of the conference table. But as soon as 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.200 you put the audience in it, it has an inherent chaos 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.520 to it because they're in and around everything, and there 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.240 is a certain joy to the way in which the 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.239 actors move in and out around an audience. 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.560 There is definitely a bit of joyful chaos to the 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.000 whole thing, and it seemed to me, someone who's not 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.080 been to a cop before, that it probably did give 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.360 a reasonable approximation of what it's like when there's two 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:14.040 hundred different countries present trying to all agree on very 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:19.200 specific wording around how to take action on climate change. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.279 The play really builds up to the end of the 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:27.680 Kyoto negotiation period where they reach an agreement in real life, 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.640 what did they actually agree on and why was it remarkable? 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.360 Well, by nineteen ninety seven, it was clear that climate 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:36.599 change is the problem that all countries have to deal with, 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:41.920 but rich, industrialized nations had contributed to the problem the most, 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:46.359 and the Cute Protocol was an agreement for all countries, 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:51.279 but developed countries signed up to legally binding targets to 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.839 reduce emissions over the next couple of decades, whereas developing 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.599 countries were exempt. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.000 One thing I noticed while working on this episode is 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:02.120 that to this day, people still debate the significance of Kyoto, 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:06.240 like how monumental it was because it was a big breakthrough, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.919 but it wasn't nearly as decisive or successful as it 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:13.320 could have been. Back in the US Congress never ratified 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.280 the Kyoto Protocol, the US never was fully on board, and. 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.560 The countries that did sign up to those targets didn't 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.960 have particularly ambitious targets. Japan, for example, had to reduce 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.720 its emissions by six percent by twenty twelve relative to 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:33.320 nineteen ninety levels. Today, all countries have to reduce emissions 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:36.960 by forty three percent by twenty thirty, So the scales 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.720 were completely different. And yet some countries like the UK 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.839 and European Union were able to achieve those targets quite easily. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.560 Other countries like Japan still didn't meet them. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.120 Can you make the case, though, that what was agreed 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.480 and Kyoto did lay the groundwork for the twenty fifteen 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:57.239 Paris Agreement. Is that fair to say? 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.600 All COP meetings sort of build up on each other, 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.800 But there are more significant COP meetings and Kyoto was 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.160 one of them. It was the first time you saw 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.800 the power of country blocks coming together in negotiations. So 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.720 island nations formed an alliance, and that alliance has grown 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.360 in size and was crucial at the Paris Agreement, where 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.400 the target for one point five degrees celsius would not 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.480 have happened had island nations not grouped together and argued 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.280 for that target to exist. There were other technical things 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.360 that came from Kyoto, such as carbon markets, which have 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.560 remained in agreements. There is a carbon market framework inside 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.480 the Paris Agreement. And then there were forsil fuel lobbyists 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:47.000 all the way from the start of climate negotiations till now. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.800 You know, we were at COP twenty eight in Dubai, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:54.040 a country that built its wealth on oil and gas, 0:07:54.240 --> 0:08:00.000 and that created so much controversy going into those negotiations. 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.200 That's why you had mixed feelings about the choice of 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.320 the two writers on the play, Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy, 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:14.920 to make the narrator Don Pearlman, who's famously a lobbyist 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:19.680 working for fossil fuel companies, someone who Despiegel called the 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.920 high Priest of the carbon Club. Let's hear a bit 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:24.840 of his opening monologue. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:30.080 Runaway inflation, culture wars, real wars, race riots, fake news, 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.920 insane insurrections, global pandemics, and on top of all of that, 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.600 a planet in literal meltdown. And if you're a guy 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.840 like me looking at a time like now, the main 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.640 thing you think is wow, Man, the nineteen nineties were 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.720 freaking glorious. Now. I know what people like you think 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:52.040 of lawyers like me. But I'm the only one who 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.640 can tell this story because I'm the only one who 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:55.120 was there. 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.679 Don Perlman died in two thousand and five, but the 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.760 writers spoke to his family while researching the play, and 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:05.400 I thought they made him a really compelling, three dimensional character, 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.920 not just a cartoon villain. How familiar were you with 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:11.480 Peerlman before you saw the play? 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:14.480 Not very much. It did come up in a conversation 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:17.319 I had with the former US Vice President Al Gore 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:21.760 at COP twenty eight last year, who remembered very clearly 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:23.680 the kind of role that Don played. 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.560 There was a very famous in those days, very famous 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.840 cole lobbyist from the United States named Don Pearlman. Never 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:37.240 speak ill of the departed, but he was extremely influential, 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:42.120 really legendary, working hand in glove with the Saudi Arabian delegation. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:45.760 I feel like legendary is an understatement. There After we 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.360 saw the play, I was still really curious about what 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.720 Don was like in real life, and so I called 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.400 up someone who had crossed paths with him at several 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.880 climate negotiations, including that cop in Kyoto. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.320 So I started actually on another the treaty, the treaty 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.679 to protect the ol zone layer. It's called the Montreal Protocol. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:07.600 That's where I first bumped into Don Perlman. 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.439 Actually, David Donagher is now a strategist with the National 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:11.560 Resource Defense Council. 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.800 And then I worked in the Clinton administration and I 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.680 actually was part of the US negotiating team for the 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.480 Kyoto protocol, and he was there, always standing in the 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:27.199 corner smoking. You would see him wait for the Saudi delegate. 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:32.440 Al Saban represented OPEK Saudi Arabia, same goals. They work together. 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.520 In the play, A lot of the drama is around 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:40.960 these different representatives arguing about the exact wording that everyone 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:41.840 can agree on. 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.839 Yeah, very much. So, I mean, going into every cop, 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.640 we tell listeners and readers this is what US reporters 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.439 are going to have to deal with when we get 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.920 to cops. It's just going to be words and pages, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.680 usually in square brackets, which are for not yet agreed, 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.240 and there will be a lot of back in fourth 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:04.200 on those words. And the way agreements come about is 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.160 fascinating because it's so many countries, even if it's country blocks, 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.640 they have really different desires, and yet they have to 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.880 agree on those same words. In all the cops I've seen, 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.160 and I think it's true of all cops in general, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.120 agreement is partly reached through compromise, but also through exhaustion. 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.120 You know, people run out of coffee and coke and food, 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.000 and everything starts to shut down, and people's planes are leaving, 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.480 and you have to agree on something because this is 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.520 such an important problem and you cannot not do anything. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:40.320 Yeah, that's what David remembered too. 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.280 We went all night and we finally achieved an agreement. 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:46.600 And by the way, this is one they had run 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:51.080 out of Coca cola, I mean areas on fumes and anyway, 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.599 about five or six in the morning, we agreed on 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.920 the Kyoto Protocol. I remember a Washington Post word called 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.640 me my punchline. This is a good day to adopt 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.199 a treaty, but a bad day to operate heavy machinery. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.880 David hasn't seen the play at the moment. You can 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.600 only see it in Stratford upon Avon until the thirteenth 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.800 of July. But because he was there at the negotiations 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.160 in Kyoto, I wanted to know what he thought about 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:23.800 Don's presence and lasting impact on the whole agreement. 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:29.679 He was kind of an outsized personality because even though 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.480 he was quiet, because he just stood there and smoked 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:37.480 and glowered and muttered. So he became a symbol of 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.680 the bad actor. But there are hundreds of them. You 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:46.439 could say that the legacy of Don Perlman is the 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.079 capture of the Republican Party by the fossil fuel industry. 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.839 Clearly, Don Pulman was a big character, and he was 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.040 a big character not just in Kyoto, but in negotiations 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.760 all the way through the nineties. But it was we 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.400 had to me that the playwrights chose him not just 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.840 to be a character but also the narrator. So you 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.520 had this guy who was in his real life showing 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:14.440 disagreement where you needed agreement, and then being the narrator 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:20.040 telling you why his attempts to sew disagreement weren't quite working. 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.800 And I felt that was a little disjointed. But you know, 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.720 playwrights have a difficult job. I've never written a play 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:28.319 it was entertaining. 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:30.920 I can see where you're coming from as someone who 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.600 still had their climate reporter had on even while in 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.520 the theater. To me, I thought, there are some really 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.200 smart reasons why they had him as a main character, 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.840 and it pulled me in a little more into the 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:46.040 human drama. 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.760 I certainly enjoyed the actor who played Don Peerlman, and 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.400 after the break we'll have a conversation with that actor, 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.320 Stephen Kunkin. By the way, if you're enjoying this episode, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.440 please take a moment to rate and review the show 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:03.120 on Spotify or Apple. It helps other listeners find it. 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.080 The character of Don Pearlman, as you heard, was central 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.040 to the drama leading up to the Kyoto Protocol, both 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.120 in real life and in the play. In this production, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.320 he's larger than life, and a lot of that has 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.440 to do with the way actor Stephen counkan inhabits the role. 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.720 Auction caught up with Stephen the morning after Kyoto's opening night. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.760 They spoke in the offices of the Royal Shakespeare Company 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:38.120 in Stratford upon Avon. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.160 You play the role of Don Perlman, the lawyer working 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.120 for the Seven Sisters, the Big ol Companies, and later 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.440 for Saudi Arabia. He's someone climate people are very critical of. 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:51.840 When I spoke with Al Gore last year, he called 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:57.040 him legendary and not in a nice way. Over the 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.880 span of many years, his job was to impede, to 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.200 slow down, to water down, or just really thwart any 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:09.800 possible meaningful action from being taken on climate change. Had 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:12.560 you heard of Don Pullman before you read Display? And 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:13.800 what made you say yes? 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.360 I had not heard of Don Pulman before this play, 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.600 and I think that's it's that's not an accident. I 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.000 think Don very much lived in the shadows and was 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:29.560 most comfortable doing his work there. You know, coming to 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.320 the process of doing Don, it came out of a 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.840 real desire to want to reconnect as an artist to 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:41.280 doing things that felt important. That we're challenging ideas and 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.600 concepts that I was struggling with in my own life, 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:48.760 and you know, we're walking through such a fractured time 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.720 right now, and I really wanted to try to do 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.240 something that helped me move my own understanding of why 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.240 it was impossible to connect with family members or friends 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:02.120 who had different political ideas or different social valuations on 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:06.520 things that I was very, very sure about. And you know, 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.960 one of the responsibilities you have as an actor is 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.400 to find empathy for the characters that you play. And 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.240 I felt like when I read Don, that we weren't 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.560 going to do a hit job on Don Perlman. I 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:21.600 think that's an easy thing to do, is to shoot 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:23.840 fish in a barrel. If you want to do that, 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.760 I think you're just preaching, basically to the choir. And 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.280 so I wanted to find out what about Don made 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.760 sense to me, because that seems to me in this 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.680 moment to be the way that we can move forward 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.880 is to try to find commonality with the people that 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.080 we don't see eye to eye with. And the most 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.560 interesting thing I've sort of discovered about Don is the 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:50.120 same thing that lawyers often do, which is they provide 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:53.640 the best defense for often what from the outside world 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.960 we find reprehensible. You're only ever as good as the 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:01.520 strongest defense, and Don was providing a very strong defense 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:04.119 for the Seven Sisters, and there is a lot of 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:07.400 ideology in there. It's been very very interesting. I've I've 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.560 ended up, you know, I've spoken a bit with his son, 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:14.680 and he's become much more human in my mind and 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:16.920 three dimensional. 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.000 Now the writers of the play made a choice to 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:23.520 not just center the play around Don's character, your character. 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:28.040 Terrible choice, terrible, terrible, But they also made Don the narrator. 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.520 Why was that choice made? Because you flipped between these 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.360 two roles, one who is dedicated to spoiling any agreement 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:41.840 versus one who is observing an agreement form despite your attempts. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.480 And as a viewer, that was the only thing I 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.160 was a little jarred about. 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.119 I mean, I personally think that this play is inert 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:56.240 if you have ralestrata as as your narrator, if you 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.640 have someone who not because he wasn't a markable human 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.159 being and had agency and the right to tell the story. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.600 But what is compelling about this narrative is putting it 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.240 in the hands of the person who didn't want this 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:16.119 to go the way that it went. And for me, 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:20.080 that's the kind of the brilliant moment they the eureka moment. 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.760 Otherwise otherwise it in some ways, it kind of becomes 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.760 a jingoistic and I don't I don't want it to 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.560 be that I've always felt and I know that they 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.480 feel that they want this to be an even handed 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.440 look at what this time was and I think Don 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:39.879 is vital in telling that story. 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.240 So do you think of Pullman as a bad actor 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:49.880 in moral terms or just a consummate strategist, someone who's 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:53.800 really good at the politics and game theory, just a 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:54.639 very good lawyer. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.920 I think it's a really gray area on how one 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:03.080 splits that atom. He works in the gray area because 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.280 you know, as we discussed in the play, it's all 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.479 about language, you know. I think the big question was 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.440 what did Don know? And when did Don know it? 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.560 And then once you know that, what do you do 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:18.720 that information? I still think that everybody deserves the strongest defense, 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:22.119 and hopefully, you know, the policy that can be made 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:27.479 against a strong defense will last time as opposed to 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:29.160 just being watered down. 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.240 Now, Don died in two thousand and five. He was 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.719 a chainsmoker. I'm going to go and do a few spoilers, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.600 but the last scenes are him on his deathbed and 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:43.919 his wife talking about him as a person. Because as 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:48.080 the writers the two Joe's figured this out, they figured 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:51.080 it out through reading about him, but also through meeting 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:56.600 his family, his wife and then son. But all through this, 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:04.200 what do you think Dawn's character is? Is it a tragedy? 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.560 I think for Don, it's a bit of an adventure story. 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:11.600 You know, here's a guy who was doing a very 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.240 specific thing in the Department of Energy under the Reagan administration, 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:17.919 and he comes out of that period of time looking 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:22.760 for new purpose. And you know, when climate policy was 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.760 first being written, it was, as Don says in the play, 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.360 could be seen as a voluntary redistribution of wealth as 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:35.560 countries who had a bigger claim to more immediate concerns 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:42.359 suddenly we're, you know, tying up Western civilization again, to 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:45.800 quote the play in a straight jacket. And I think 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:51.320 he worked very, very hard to find a rugged way through. 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:55.600 And I go back to this discussion I had with 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.159 family a long time ago where I was sitting at 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.680 a table. I wasn't long out of graduate school of Julliard, 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.560 where I just spent four years studying Shakespeare, and I 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:08.400 sat down with my family, sort of distant family, who 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:13.120 were lawyers, all lawyers, who wanted to debate whether Shakespeare 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:18.199 was of any value anymore. It bore no relevance to 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:21.040 modern society. Most people couldn't understand it. They felt most 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.160 people they didn't like it, and they pretended that they 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.880 liked it, and most people would rather see a modern play, 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.040 So what was the actual purpose of Shakespeare? And sitting 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.959 amongst this these legal minds, I found myself sort of 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:40.119 devoid of any good, any good defense for Shakespeare. But 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.560 they took such an incredible joy in sort of breaking 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.120 down you know what I think would be widely accepted 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:49.840 as the great you know writer in the English language. 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:56.400 And there's that mind that I don't know that I possessed, 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.679 that kind of literal mind to sort of when everyone 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.439 else says black, prove that it's white. And that to 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.159 me has a lot about what Don does in this play. 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.520 And it's very, very interesting. It's very heavy to step 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:15.679 into that world where you know that you are the 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.680 one person who sees something in one way and can 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:21.359 manipulate people to walk in that direction. 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:26.320 So there is a universality to his character in some sense, 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:30.359 which is to say, there are Don Pulman's in the past, 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.720 there are Don Pulman's in the present, and there will 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:39.120 be Don Pulman's in the future. Who would you characterize 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:40.800 as the Don Pulmans of today? 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:46.720 Oh gosh, I mean, you know, it's funny. Just the 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:48.800 other night I came home from the show, and it 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:53.320 was really I had a lot of energy and stupidly 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.840 was doom scrolling through Instagram and found some sort of 0:22:57.040 --> 0:23:00.679 friend who who has gotten in a very different political 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:04.359 way than I have. And I don't know why. I 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.400 don't usually answer people on Instagram. I don't usually engage 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:10.720 in political discourse online. But for this whatever reason, is 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:14.520 probably because Don Perlman was still strong in my in 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.560 my engine. I got into a you know, one thirty 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.520 am because of the time difference fight with this with 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:28.240 this friend. And you know, Don Perlman's exist on both sides. 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:30.960 You know, the people who are in our country who 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:33.440 are watching Fox News think that the Don Perlman's were 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:35.720 on CNN, and the people who were watching CNN think 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.560