The latest production from Buxton Fringe veterans Ashrow Theatre, Declining The Future is a trio of short plays by American writer Jill Haas.  The three pieces are set centuries apart, but are loosely linked by a theme of denial – a refusal to acknowledge the evident truth about a growing crisis. 

The first scene shows us an early-1800’s industrialist, who – unable to adapt to a changing world, and consumed by fear of a threat posed by people far away – turns his back on the prospect of international trade, thereby squandering his own prosperity.  Sound familiar?  The politics may be eerily up-to-date, but the characters are rooted firmly in their time; the husband and wife call each other by formal names, yet their relationship is evidently a tender one.  When younger man Jacob arrives, his oh-so-clipped accent comes dangerously close to parody, but overall the piece successfully unpicks a needless personal tragedy born of inflexible pride.

A soundtrack in German signals a change of milieu, and the same actors return for the second act, this time set in 1936 in Nazi-era Berlin.  Much of this scene is played for gentle comedy, a choice which at first seems incongruous, but it resonates well with the inner conflict at the heart of this piece: that this middle-class family, who are emphatically not Nazis, are wilfully ignoring the gathering storm around them.  The performance slightly overplays that card, making the family matriarch’s response to some troubling news feel more like air-headed foolishness than desperate denial, and to my mind it also suffers a little from having two storylines: the older couple contemplate fleeing their homeland while the younger pair discuss converting to Catholicism, and although these are certainly two sides of the same coin I’m not sure there’s enough time to consider both of them.

The final piece brings us nearly up to the present day, as a group of environmental activists meet to plan the next stage of their well-meaning but transparently ineffectual campaign.  Adopting a far lighter tone, this segment gives the actors a chance to have some fun, an opportunity they embrace with gusto.  Andrew Cullum is a delight as Keith, the ageing man in a leather jacket who isn’t quite as much in control as he believes; while Linda Large is gently hilarious as his despairing, disappointed admirer.  Frank Simms and Rebecca D’Souza are impressive too, representing an open-minded younger generation who are willing to challenge authority but yet to be won over to the cause.

So, each of the three pieces is each engaging in its own right – but there’s not quite enough of a connection between them to bind them into a single show.  Admittedly, each script involves a theme of burying your head in the sand, but that’s where the similarity ends.  Everyone involved has a different reason for sleepwalking towards their doom; the 19th-century industrialist has little to teach the endangered German woman, or the climate-change deniers of the present day.  The third piece also lacks any real oppositional force, meaning the conflicts between the characters are more to do with everyday emotions than the clash of perceptions that forms the play’s theme.

There are some clever details; the recorded segues between the scenes are especially well-thought-through, at first delivering a jolt of unfamiliarity and then easing you into a new place and time.  The delineation between the three characters played by each actor is also crisp and clear, avoiding creating distracting echoes between what are, after all, quite similar roles.  All in all then, this is a well-executed performance of an interesting script – but it perhaps needs a little re-thinking to deliver the provocative message it can and should do.