A friend and I recently drove to Mackworth Island to see “Deep Blue Sound,” a play about islanders grappling with a sea change — the absence of whales that had always returned, until they didn’t. 

Although written about Puget Sound and its orcas, the play felt at home on an island off our shore, in the gymnasium of the Governor Baxter School for the Deaf. The Portland Theater Festival production was downright magical.

As we watched the islanders cope with life and each other while worrying and wondering about the absence of their annual visitors, we laughed and, I think, grew more human, more kind and more thoughtful. As my friend said to me afterward, the play was a welcome change from real life.

But of course, it was real life. This morning, I read in the New York Times that an upwelling that normally occurs off the western coast of Panama did not happen this year. “The cold water upwell, which is vital to marine life, did not materialize for the first time on record,” the article said. Such upwellings bring food to the surface for whales and other marine species, as well as cooling waters to help sustain corals threatened by the warming waters we humans have caused. 

I thank the Portland Theater Festival for a terrific show. I must also state loudly that I don’t understand any politician who is not putting the risks of climate change at the top of their priority list. There is no Planet B.

Tammalene Mitman
Scarborough