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CORVALLIS - An unusual and acclaimed theater troupe from northern California called Human Nature will present an environmental comedy called "What's Funny about Climate Change?" on Friday, Nov. 7, at Oregon State University.

The play, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7 p.m. in Milam Auditorium. It is sponsored by the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature and the Written Word at OSU, as well as the university's Department of Philosophy, and the College of Science.

"Climate Change" is a series of vignettes that examines the gap between the scale of global warming and human response to the threat. Author David Simpson says the comedy "grows out of the enormity of that gap and provides a potent challenge to try to narrow it - and soon."

Simpson and Jane Lapiner perform the vignettes, which are narrated by a third performer, Joyful Simpson. All of the vignettes are comic, yet relate to potential effects of global warming. In one scene, for example, creative experiments in a top secret government-industry laboratory are aimed at helping humans develop gills - quickly - to deal with the melting of polar ice caps.

Human Nature has appeared throughout the Northwest before, presenting a play called "Queen Salmon," in which loggers, hippies, biologists and business leaders - as well as salmon and spotted owls - act out the trials of a community wracked by change.

The troupe has been featured in American Theatre magazine, and performed for the regional exposition of the Environmental Protection Agency.