The Cast Photo by Emilio Madrid

Part political thriller, part primer on gamesmanship, part expedition into the ins and outs of back-room (sometimes backstabbing) negotiations, Kyoto, written by the team of Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, comes to New York via an Olivier-nominated London production. Its raised circular set (designed by Miriam Buether) not only juts out into the audience, but literally pulls some theatregoers directly into the goings-on by seating them around a conference table among characters who are in attendance at a series of United Nations-sponsored meetings at various locations around the globe. If you are seated there, you may be enlisted to participate in some small ways.

As you get ready to enter the theater, you will be handed a lanyard and tag identifying you as a delegate to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For instance, I was a designated representative of the Alliance of Small Island States, or AOSIS, one of many subgroups and acronyms that are created in a flash as necessity dictates, necessity being the mother of power-grabbing moments throughout the production.

Like riding on a zipline, Kyoto, directed at its breakneck pace by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin, whips us along a ten-year journey around the globe as various groups meet to cobble together a universally acceptable document that amounts to a commitment to combating climate change though the promissory note of "targets and timetables." That is a sore point that the wealthy global leaders (including the United States) find difficult to stomach, and it becomes a major bone of contention triggering walk-outs and threats of walk-outs.

At times, it seems everyone is mired in quicksand, in which varying voices argue endlessly over every word and punctuation mark. There is one breathtaking scene in which the delegates, working late into the night, are bereft of interpreters. It is then that the Tower of Babel analogy comes into full blossom before our eyes. Funny in a Samuel Beckett absurdist sort of way, until we consider what is at stake here.

Throughout, it seems few if any of the participants are actually motivated by a desire to curb climate change. The universal goal seems to be to meet the interests of those in power in their respective countries. The American perspective is largely represented by the chain-smoking oil industry lobbyist Don Pearlman (a genial Stephen Kunken), who is enlisted to trip up the proceedings and who damn near manages to do so at the final gathering of delegates in Kyoto, Japan. That is where, in a marathon session, the first international treaty was being cobbled together as a commitment to collective action (those infamous targets and timetables).

By necessity, there is a lot of information we are asked to absorb here, and it is a real credit to all involved in this production that none of this comes across as pedantic lecturing. Helpful video projections and conversational interactions among the cast members make all of this feel part and parcel of the play. The performances and rapid-fire timing throughout are rock solid, a thrill ride from start to end. In addition to Kunken, standouts are Jorge Bosch as the determined chair of the Kyoto summit, and Natalie Gold as Don's wife Shirley, supportive of him if not his cause.

It's sobering to note what all has transpired since the events being portrayed here (the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997). The climate-change deniers have not gone away, and the ice glaciers continue to melt at an alarming rate. Kyoto summons up one brief shining moment of unanimity. Let us hope for a sequel, both in theatrical terms and in real life.