We live in interesting times. Ours is a globalised society, full of information and research, high speed data and digital memory. We live in a highly networked social structure, people are living longer, working longer, retiring later. International travel is commonplace. The primary political discussions that take place in parliament are economic. Science ( a modern replacement for ancient concepts such as faith) is treated with deep and furrow-browed scepticism. Our world is shrinking and the sea levels are rising.

Daniel (Ian Meadows) is under pressure. A climate scientist and advisor to the government, there is little he can do to quell the rising tide of anxiety within – the evidence too overwhelming that realism (a dark and inexorable end) is devoid of optimism. When Daniel meets Fiona (Ash Ricardo), a sassy free spirited receptionist, at a political networking event, something deep within him begins to change. A romance blossoms, swells into chaos and delightful discovery. But what is the point of love and in a dying world?

As pressure mounts in the public and political eye, and flippant intimacy with Fiona turns into duty, Daniel’s resolve begins to falter.

This is a portrait of a generational anxiety. An anxiety which is at once tangled up in questions of hope, love, childbirth, human environmental impact, predictions, art, love, career… which at it’s very core speaks to the responsibility which falls on the shoulders of each emerging generation.

Sandwiched on stage, between two large white slabs (design by David Fleischer) – the world is closing in. Projections flicker (Audio-Visual Designer Steve Toulmin) and hiccup across the ceiling and the floor, Daniel is enveloped by it all – the past, the future and the now.

In many ways this is a staged film – and not too far from its beginnings as a film script (I read an early draft in 2006) and yes Meadows is a very preciously accomplished writer of TV and film) – it’s a naturalistic conversational drama/rom-com. I believe Between Two Waves to be more in the tradition of Andrew Bovell’s When the Rain Stops Falling, than, say a cutting political provocation in the tradition of Stephen Sewell.

Sam Strong’s direction is well-paced and focuses on the dynamic interchange between characters – who orbit around Meadows in a cursory way – exposing flaws and foibles of Daniel. Each scene delivered with a punchy playfulness, whilst monologues unfurl with tender consideration.

Meadows has not written a play designed to show how the world presses itself onto people, nor to show one man’s struggle against a single (or batallion of) antagonist(s). Instead we see the pressure to make sense, to scientifically reconcile competing perspectives with cross-purposed objectives. How does one live a good, ethical, responsible, safe life – in the face of force majeure, mounting personal anxiety, climate change and love? How are we to live? What are we to do to safe guard OUR future, and the future of the world as a larger organism.