“End to Begin”: A play about the future of the planet

If the future were to ask who we were, what would we say? 

Imagine a generation from the future travelling back to visit us. What would we tell them about the world today? What did we know – and what did we choose not to know? What did we fear, dream of, and hope for?

These are the questions at the heart of “End to Begin”, a documentary theatre production by Gloria Benedikt, returning to the Odeon Theatre from 26 to 29 January 2026.

The premise - a philosopher, a scientist, an activist, and a diplomat from the year 2075 are sent back to present-day Vienna to understand why the world they inhabit looks the way it does. They ask a simple but uncomfortable question: who were you, and why did you live the way you did?

We are faced with a bleak reality today. The green wave has lost momentum. People are turning their backs – exhausted, disillusioned, overwhelmed. Misinformation spreads faster than the truth, as false promises drown out those genuinely willing to confront our challenges head-on.

Yet “End to Begin” resists telling only this story.

In a time of political inertia and public exhaustion, the play also provides space for a stance of optimism - an act of resistance. Renewable energy production continues to reach new highs. Hundreds of thousands of people are committing themselves to nature conservation. Across societies, new initiatives are taking shape to improve media literacy and experiment with democratic renewal as startups work tirelessly to innovate against climate change – from carbon capture to ecosystem restoration.

“End to Begin” is not a lecture or a manifesto, but an invitation to think together. Throughout the performance, the audience is asked questions that are both intimate and collective: What have you lost to global warming? What matters to you deeply enough that you hope it will still exist in the future? What would a world look like in which we succeeded in the transition toward a regenerative society? Through theatre, dance, music, and conversation, the past, present, and future merge into a single moment of reflection.

The stage will bring together representatives of the complexity of today’s world: a politician (Christoph Wiederkehr, Austria’s Minister of Education), a scientist (John Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis), an activist (Katharina Rogenhofer, co-founder of Fridays for Future Austria), an academic (Reinhard Steurer, Professor of Climate Policy at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences), and a greentech entrepreneur (the author of this article and CEO of illuminem.com).

They will share the stage with an outstanding artistic cast, featuring some of the most promising actors of the next generation of Austrian theatre — Bety Aubrechtová, Felix Frank, Gordan Kukic, and Xenia Samstag — alongside dancers from the Vienna State Opera Ballet, Robert Weithas and Marietta Kro, whose performances bring breathtaking movement to the evening. The show even concludes with a powerful finale by soprano Sara Casey, whose voice brings the production to an unforgettable close.

As the play’s author and director Gloria Benedikt puts it: “Especially given current geopolitical developments, we need to ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in, rather than simply accepting the world as it is. We need planetary humanism – and this work is a contribution towards it.”

"End to Begin" invites audiences to sit with that uncertainty – to reflect on how today’s choices may one day be understood, and on what it would mean to take responsibility for the world as it is becoming.