There’s a laptop open on the stage as the audience files in. On it a digital counter – ticking over with ominous speed – showing the world’s human population growth in real time. 

Emerging British playwright Maude Dromgoole’s 3 Billion Seconds taps into matters Malthusian in 100 minutes spent with eco-activist couple Daisy (played by Izabella Louk) and Michael (Victor Y Z Xu).

Both subscribe to the idea that humankind has become a plague on the Earth and that things are only going to get worse. Much worse, in fact. They do their best to get the message out in guerrilla performance pieces and try to live as carbon-neutral a life as is possible in 21st century London. Turkey Twizzlers are out; vegan is in (mostly).

Photo © Phil Erbacher

Theirs is a friendship with benefits other than a full-blown romantic thing, but after a vasectomy-related misunderstanding, Daisy falls pregnant. Does that mean their commitment to the ideals of zero population growth goes out the window? Or is there another way to balance the sustainability book? If you’re going to add one, does that make it morally acceptable to … take one away?

Played in a sandbox set dotted with bargain basement furniture (a Mia MacCormick design), 3 Billion Seconds (roughly 90 years – the projected average lifespan of someone born in an advanced economy today) blends black comic and satirical elements into its study of millennial anxiety and what it is to be responsible in a world that seems determined to hurl itself over the edge. 

The urgency in the production is understandable, and Dominique Purdue’s direction pushes the pedal to the floor pace-wise. After a while, an impression forms of a vehicle for ideas spinning its wheels despite the best efforts of the cast, who also play a handful of minor – indeed, disposable – characters.

In the end, Dromgoole’s focus on one couple and the implausible choice they face feels more reductive than it should.

3 Billion Seconds plays at KXT on Broadway until 2 May.