‘Angry writer’ is what Stephen Sewell, one of Australia’s most prominent playwrights, has been known to describe himself as; ‘political’ is the adjective others most commonly attach to his name. Sewell’s plays, while often inspired by Australian current affairs, are not merely a theatrical rendition of local news; instead they pinpoint and then uncompromisingly dissect global issues on a local scale.

Having already staged Sewell’s Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary America, Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre is now getting ready to unleash another one of his texts, It Just Stopped, on London. Set in an electricity-deprived, cataclysmic New York, it confronts the audiences with the consequences of climate change.

Ahead of the opening night, Run-Riot talked to Sewell about witnessing the collapse of an empire, why Noam Chomsky would never hide behind the sofa and unfashionable Australian writers.

Run-Riot: Myth, Propaganda and Disaster in Nazi Germany and Contemporary Americawas influenced by post 9-11 politics; It Just Stopped is a New York based end of the world play. They have in common a preoccupation with America: where does your fascination with the ‘world leader’ come from? Is it in any way a reflection on Australia’s pro-American politics?

Stephen Sewell: Australia's close relationship – formalised in many political and trade treaties, as well as the country being peppered with more than thirty US bases, including ones crucial to the US drone program - is of course well known, but my interest really is in the US as a declining power, and the associated disruptions to international politics arising from that. It's not often one gets to witness the collapse of an empire, and I'm sure I'm not the only dramatist being attracted to the most dramatic event of the era. My take on it, in It Just Stopped, is nevertheless from the Australian point of view, where I present the Australians as the strangely demonic tormentors of the ruling elite, a kind of return of the repressed, who stir the terror of the first class passengers as they watch their privileged existence plunge toward its fatal and all too predictable end.

Run-Riot: If It Just Stopped is anything to go by you don’t appear to hold too kind an opinion on intellectuals, whether they come from the world of The New York Review of Books or made-to-shock radio programmes. Do you find today’s intellectual elite at all guilty of social ignorance? 

Stephen Sewell: I guess my target is that brand of intellectual whose role seems more attuned to obfuscation and confusion, rather than illumination and enlightenment. I'm sure Noam Chomsky will never find himself hiding behind the sofa too frightened to go downstairs and take a look.

Run-Riot: The play conflicts New York elite with Australian nouveau riche. Does the world of the non-privileged feature in any, if indirect way? What prompted you to focus on the upper classes?

Stephen Sewell: They're more fun.  I mean, Thomas Perkins, the billionaire plutocrat who compared himself to the Jews facing the Nazi hordes of the Occupy Movement - Hilarious.

Run-Riot: When the play opened in 2006, Australia was yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. How has the public attitude towards climate change evolved since? 

Stephen Sewell: Over the past seven years, polling indicates that Australians have been overwhelmingly in favour of some form of intervention to prevent climate change (rising to 84 % in 2013), but the shift has been away from a sense of urgency to a more restrained, lower cost intervention (Lowy Institute polling). The heat, as it were, has gone out of the debate, even as the evidence of climate change, and its disastrous effects on Australia, have become more obvious. As a result, climate change has slipped from the public agenda, with an openly sceptical Prime Minister, surrounded by out-and-out deniers in his Government and business advisers, now running the discussion. Of course the issue of whether or not Australia should join the world and put a price on carbon emissions is really a sideshow when it is understood that Australia is one of the largest coal exporters in the world, and consequently responsible for a major part of international carbon emissions. The real debate, therefore, must be whether or not Australia continues mining coal at all. And you can imagine, with an economy now basically geared toward the mining industry, how popular that would be.

Run-Riot: Orange Tree Theatre, who in 2004 also staged Myth, Propaganda and Disaster... is not a typical (central) London venue - in terms of location, but also its core audiences. How did your relationship with them come about and what is it that keeps it going for such a long time? 

Stephen Sewell: All I can say is I'm one of Sam Walters' biggest fans. I love what he does, and love the Orange Tree. His dedication - and the dedication and loyalty he has been able to instil in his staff and supporters - have turned the Orange Tree into an internationally recognised theatre and a must-see stop for any theatre-loving tourist visiting London.

Run-Riot: Your work often deals with pressing Australian political questions. With a new, not entirely uncontroversial prime minister taking the office recently, do you foresee any new topics and issues that might inspire? 

Stephen Sewell: Western style democracies are on the retreat, if not now - in the revelations coming from Edward Snowden about the NSA, the GCHQ and their equivalents in Australia - completely vitiated. I doubt there are many people left who believe they have any meaningful power over what happens in what we used to call "our own country," and this represents a terrifying turn of events, especially in the context of ecological crisis and economic disaster. People across the world, in the UK, the US, and, yes, in Australia are bewildered and angry at the betrayal of politicians and the institutions, like banks and police forces, which were supposed to be responsible for our well-being, so, yes, I see a great many plays, and books, and novels, and many other things as well, being written and acted on as we try to wrestle a future worth living for ourselves and our children from the catastrophic mess we now find ourselves in.

Run-Riot: Could you introduce our readers to the Australian theatre? What are its predominant or unique topics, production challenges and dominant aesthetics? How socially and politically involved is the theatre? 

Stephen Sewell: Gosh, where does one start. Australia is a country of 23 million people, with more than a quarter born overseas and a median age of 35, and getting older. As a former British colony and penal settlement, racism remains an issue and an organising principle. Nationalism periodically raises its head, but doesn't have the heat it did in the late nineteenth century, as the country becomes more firmly plugged into the international capitalist economy. In fact the stereotypes of national character that once populated the stage now seem more like embarrassing relatives than anything we want to lay claim to. Anti-Americanism, for example, which used to be compulsory when I was a boy, is now regarded as very uncool. In fact, what is cool is the latest literary fashion from London, so that in many ways a revolution has taken place in Australia, and London and New York have once again become the cultural capitals they were when I first started writing. But there are many good writers doing the unfashionable thing, and writing about things that are important, like who we are and why we get ourselves into the trouble we do, which I suppose is the curse of writers everywhere, so to that extent, we are international, and will probably always be.

Run-Riot: In 2012 you became the Head of Writing for Performance at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. What are the challenges in working with the next generation of Australian playwrights? What’s the main thing you hope they take with them into the world of professional theatre?

Stephen Sewell: It's been a tremendous privilege, working with new writers, and being revived by their enthusiasm and courage. The world is not kind to writers, either here or in Australia, but writers cannot help themselves, and so perhaps shouldn't be worried about too much. They write because they need to, and in their need they give the world a priceless gift. I only hope to be a good mid-wife to help in the delivery.

Run-Riot: Can you tell us more about what you’re working on at the moment? Are there any more UK productions in the works?

Stephen Sewell: I've just finished a play on Shakespeare and King James VI, called Majesty, and I've also just written a play about Australia's involvement in the Afghanistan war, called Kandahar Gate.  I write for exactly the same reason everyone else does, because I can't help myself, and will do so till the day I die.

It Just Stopped

5 February - 8 March

Orange Tree Theatre

1 Clarence Street

Richmond

London

TW9 2SA