Below are comments by playwright David Rambo, responding to questions by Literary Manager Mark Routhier of the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, where The Ice Breaker enjoyed its world premiere in March of 2006.
The first I heard of ice-core drilling and how it could reveal climate history was when I read an article titled "Ice History" by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker. This was in January 2002, as I was struggling for inspiration to fulfill a commission from ASK Theater Projects and the Geffen Playhouse. What struck me immediately was the metaphoric quality of ice-core drilling, how much it suggested two people getting to know one another. Layer by layer, we go deeper. We learn a history, some of it from warmth, and some from cold. I had a relationship with Cal Tech that led me to Dave Stevenson, a wonderful planetary scientist. He gave me good initial direction, led me to texts and other scientists. I am still reading and discussing these subjects as new information comes forth. Interestingly, the best reporting on the ice cap and the implications of its evolution is in UK publications. US media rarely report on the subject, and it's huge.
The notion (that global warming may preceed a new ice age) has been kicked around by scientists for over a century. Ice-core drilling is one way to explore the history. Ocean sediments and other geologic exploratory techniques contribute evidence going back even further. That is pure science (what in the play Lawrence calls being "an explainer"). The data becomes applied science – as Lawrence learned in a professionally humiliating way - when used as the basis of predictions, as is the case now in dialogues over global warming. Some suggest that the current rise in surface temperatures is simply a function of nature's regular warming cycle. Others counter that if warm periods do occur naturally and predictably, we're compelled to be more responsible stewards of the environment now that human population is at an all-time high, and our contributions to changes in the atmosphere factor in the severity of the warming.
I love the research phase of a new project. Perhaps because my mother and grandmother were librarians and shared with me the joy of "digging for answers." Early drafts inevitably contain more of the research than ends up in production. That stripping away is a continuation of the process of discovery. Extensive research helps an author make good editing decisions. We don't know as much as our characters do (I'd never claim to be a paleoclimatology expert), but deep research helps us render their universe more truthfully, which then enables the audience to participate to a fuller extent.
I thought Lawrence (the male protaganist in The Ice Breaker) would want to have moved as far away from the cold as possible. As part of my research, I gave myself a three-week sojourn through the desert southwest. It just felt right. One of the things that struck me about the landscape was its apparent lifelessness – that is, until one observes it patiently and unblinkingly, and its vitality is revealed. It was also intriguing to note how the dunes and much of the geology resemble snowdrifts and Antarctic rock formations.
The key difference between the two (writing for CSI and writing for the stage) is that television is a literal medium, and the theatre is a poetic medium. In film, the director fills a frame with detail to tell the story. In the theatre, language, metaphor and allusion "fill the frame," allowing the audience to participate in the telling of the story. Then there's subtext; it runs deeper and richer in the theatre. An awful lot of the subtext of TV comes from the personalities of the actors rather than the delicate layering of character motivations and histories one can work with in a play. This is due, in part to time: an episode of a TV series is written and filmed in a few weeks, as opposed to a play, which might be written over a year or more and rehearsed and refined over months.
Is any artist ever completely satisfied? That said, I've been extraordinarily lucky in having productions successfully interpret my work. Especially in the theatre, where the role of the author is greater in the process. In television, there are so many hands needed to make the final product happen, that even the most aggressive authorial involvement is less than it would be in a stage production. I've been lucky in television to be able to observe and be taught by some of the most skilled practitioners of the craft, working at the top of their games.
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