The Civilians troupe made its name with documentary, mosaic-like shows based on extensive interviews — “Gone Missing” about losing things, “In the Footprint” about the battle over Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards.
Its new piece, “The Great Immensity,” tackles global warming, but this time there’s a fictitious story to go with the research.
Writer/director Steve Cosson’s overly convoluted tale folds in scientific factoids, a thriller-ish subplot about a missing husband, and another about eco-activist kids. As if this weren’t enough, there are also projections, live video feeds and musical numbers by Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”).
The ground the show covers is, well, immense, but also scattered. And not everything makes sense: Do kiddie agitators really go around the world unchaperoned?
Like other Civilians shows, “The Great Immensity” has songs. While the ones here seem shoehorned into the play, they also provide the evening’s emotional high points.
The heartbreaking “Martha and the Lemur” recalls the fates of the passenger pigeon and the Madagascar lemur that were the last of their species: “Is there no one left to love me?/Oh my love, my love.”
And the final number, “The Next Forever,” nails the heartbreak and loneliness of missing a friend or lover — or, for that matter, a world gone down the drain.