THEATER:A cold heart melts in ‘Ice Breaker’

Global warming has caught the attention of scientists and ecologists, so it was only a matter of time before a playwright took notice.

In the case of “The Ice-Breaker” — opening Feb. 17 in its southern California premiere engagement at the Laguna Playhouse, following a week of previews — that playwright, David Rambo, already had a pretty steady day job.

He’s been on the writing staff of the TV drama series “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” since 2003.

“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,” Rambo recalls.

“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.”

Rambo began concocting a story based on the attraction of apparent opposites.

His male protagonist, Lawrence, had offered a theory about global warming that was roundly dismissed, turning him into an outcast in his field. As a result, he has moved to the desert Southwest.

One day a young woman, Sonia Milan — who has written a doctoral thesis on climate change and has discovered Lawrence’s personal journal in the process — seeks him out in the desert heat where he has become a loner and a recluse.

Fueling the theatrical fire is the fact that Sonia’s doctoral supervisor, and former lover, is the same backstabbing professor who destroyed Lawrence’s reputation.

As the play unfolds, a process of human “warming” takes place during which Lawrence slowly succumbs to Sonia’s warmth. Breaking the ice, as it were.

“People isolate themselves out of anger or fear,” Rambo says, “until they’re reminded again of how wonderful it is to be touched.”

While Rambo was researching his play — and spending three weeks in the desert Southwest, where he noted how the dunes and much of the geology resembled snowdrifts and Antarctic rock formations — he realized he didn’t have to spend so much time explaining global warming in his text.

“The science is now more widely understood,” he notes. “It allowed me to cut down on the exposition.”

The playhouse’s production of “The Ice-Breaker,” directed by David Manke, will run through March 18.

Tickets may be reserved by calling the box office at (949) 497-2787.