The present day. A couple in their late twenties live in a big city. Both have good and interesting jobs. They buy their coffee fair-trade and, as a matter of principle, boycott big chain stores. They watch art-house films with subtitles and read books about current political topics. »We are decent people« they keep reassuring themselves. The world’s population is over 7 billion, with 2.6 more born every second. The demand for food and drinking water is rising alongside the consumption of energy and resources. It’s getting crowded. Global warming, natural disasters and an increasingly unpredictable climate seem to be the more harmless side effects. Civil wars for water, food and resources loom in the near future. Can you bring a person into this world? »I could fly every day from London to New York for seven years and would still leave a smaller carbon footprint than if I had a child.« The clock’s ticking whilst they argue – what will be destroyed first: their relationship or the environment?

With Duncan Macmillan’s new play, a hit in the UK and USA, Katie Mitchell examines personal and global conflicts at the dawn of the new millennium.