David Rambo Breaks the Ice
By Chris Trela
Most people visit the mountain resort town of Lake Arrowhead while on vacation. David Rambo goes there to write plays.
It was in February of 1998 in a cabin near the lake that Rambo completed his play God’s Man in Texas, which was given its world premiere the following year at the 23rd Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. By 2002, God’s Man in Texas ranked tenth as the most produced play in regional theatres in America.
Rambo returned to Lake Arrowhead and spent the summer of 2002 writing his next play, The Ice-Breaker, which has its Southern California premiere February 13-March 18, 2007, at The Laguna Playhouse.
In The Ice-Breaker, a brilliant young climatologist completing her doctoral thesis searches out the once-legendary scientist (now a disgraced genius living in self-imposed exile in New Mexico) whose work in Greenland first inspired her.
“I saw this play in San Francisco and it’s pretty cool,” says The Laguna Playhouse Artistic Director, Andy Barnicle. “A young girl shows up on this guy’s doorstep having found his journals in the ice that he’d thrown away years ago—he had come up with a pretty good theory about global warming while he was in Antarctica but nobody believed him. They labeled him an idiot and an outcast, so he went off to live by himself in the desert, as far away from the ice as you can get. This girl shows up with his journals and demands to know why he didn’t finish this project.”
When the two meet, sexual and intellectual sparks fly. In the course of one sleepless night, both learn that their romantic attraction is as volatile and mysterious as the frontiers of scientific discovery. Cold science gives way to warm emotion as they reveal the passions and demons that drive their quests.
“I had never written a two-character play before this one, but I received some indirect help from Michael Dickson, the literary manager at the Guthrie Theatre,” recalls Rambo. “He told me he does not like two character plays, because once they agree to share the room, the play is over. I let that be my guide. In my play, when they agree to share the room, that does not solve anything and the play is not over.”
“This play has a good plot and it really moves along,” notes Barnicle. “It’s not just two people sitting down for an evening and having a long discussion.”
Rambo’s inspiration came from reading an article called Ice History by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker in January of 2002. The article explored the topic of global warming and ice-drilling as a way to measure the amount of glacier melting that could forecast future changes to the atmosphere.
“When I first started to write the play, people were very surprised that glaciers are melting. It’s not a surprise anymore—audiences know far more than ever before,” says Rambo. “Now they ask the question what happens after that? What are the implications? So without being apocalyptical, I decided to create a play as though these were the last two people on earth. If you are Adam and Eve, what is that feeling?”
Rambo spent a lot of time researching his topic and speaking with scientists. His research also led him in new directions.
"I re-read Shakespeare’s The Tempest,” states Rambo. “There is a sense of science and magic in that play, and also a great deal of heart. It was an inspiration. I also drove through the southwest. I am not a desert person, but I wanted to set the play in the hottest place I could find. It was a revelation to me, because I saw how much vitality is in the desert.”
With those images lingering as metaphors in his mind, Rambo constructed a play with characters whose contracts would leave an impression on audiences.
"There’s a conflict between hot and cold, remote versus populated areas, young student versus old teacher,” notes Rambo. “One character is looking for peace, another for attention. The one thing they have in common is that they are both aroused by knowledge. Ultimately, this is a play about knowing.”
The Ice-Breaker received its world premiere last April at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco directed by Art Manke, founder of L.A.’s acclaimed A Noise Within theater. Manke is also directing The Laguna Playhouse production.
“He knows the play, he loves actors, and he’s an aggressive director, which this play needs,” says Rambo. “We learned a lot about the play during its run in San Francisco, and I made some revisions after that. Plays are living things. I may make a few more little changes before the Laguna production.”
An actor and musician, Rambo was born in Pennsylvania in 1955, moved to New York at 19 and appeared in several off-Broadway musicals before moving to Los Angeles, where he supported himself by selling real estate in between TV and film work. He spent idle hours at open houses sketching ideas for plays on the backs of property sales brochures.
After having several plays produced in Los Angeles (including the long-running There’s No Place Like House), Rambo landed a job writing for the popular TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
“That’s a pretty time-consuming job,” admits Rambo. “I love that show, but I also love the theater, which is why I write plays. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. I’m also looking forward to this Laguna Playhouse production. I’ve been there often—it’s one of my favorite theaters. I love the aspect ratio of the audience to the stage.”
Chris Trela is a writer and the owner of TrelaVisions Creative Services
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