Play humanises scientists, activists

Hole, by Lynda Chanwai-Earle, Circa Theatre 2, until December 18, reviewed by Sarah Catherall

Iremember the time my father came home from his job as a printer on a Napier newspaper and began talking about the ozone hole over Antarctica. It was the early 1980s, when I was a teen obsessed with boys, skating and swotting for school exams. It felt like a moment – until then we had not worried too much about the planet and our abuse of it. Afterwards, though, we carried on with our lives, and the only difference was we worried about applying sunscreen a bit more as we learned the gaping ozone hole meant we would get sunburned more quickly.

What I did not know back then was that it was thanks to a woman – pioneering American female atmospheric scientist Susan Solomon – that we started to understand what was causing the ozone hole to expand. She blamed this on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), pollutioncausing chemicals found in refrigeration and repellents.

In fact, even though women were banned from the icy continent until 1969, it was thanks to a number of other women who pushed for science and conservation in Antarctica in the mid-1980s that action happened: Solomon’s research led to a ban on ozone-depleting pollution and Greenpeace activist Maj De Poorter helped make Antarctica the only continent on earth to be free of mineral and oil exploitation.

Playwright Lynda Chanwai-Earle has turned this historical time into a captivating play. Hole humanises the stories of the scientists (nicknamed ‘‘beakers’’), navy seals and Greenpeace activists on the ice in the 1980s. Part of environmental theatre group Ice Floe Productions, ChanwaiEarle has not been to Antarctica but interviewed science writer Rebecca Priestley and artists who have been there to make it true to what life is like for those living and working there.

The atmospheric musical score is composed by Artist to Antarctica fellow Gareth Farr, while Jason O’Hara’s powerful images of icy mountains that he captured on the continent are projected in the background.

The bigger environmental story is softened with the daily drama of life on the continent. There are some fun scenes set in the bar, along with a sex scene. There is homesickness and drama, such as when Ione, a navy seal (Sepelini Mua’au), Stella, a Wellington scientist (Elle Wootton) and Bonny, from Greenpeace, (Stevie Hancox-Monk) are caught in a snow storm.

Set not long after the Rainbow Warrior bombing in 1985, it also reveals the politics, when speaking to a Greenpeace activist on McMurdo base would result in discipline. Without too many spoilers, Bonny challenges Stella for not wanting to be seen with her. ‘‘This is not about you. This is about my work,’’ says Stella.

While Ione does not know too much about the ozone hole, this is cleverly explained by Stella, who is in Antarctica trying to prove Solomon’s theory that it is caused by CFCs. ‘‘That is why we are here. We want to work out what is causing the ozone hole to grow. It is huge and it is frightening,’’ she says. ‘‘The ozone is our angel. It protects us from the sun’s ultraviolet rays . . . Global pollution is causing this, so we need a hole protocol.’’

The play is labelled an ecopowered black comedy but I did not laugh too much.

The ozone hole over the Antarctic has since grown to 24.8 million kilometres, about the size of North America. In a poignant scene at the end, Stella feels like a metaphor for Antarctica’s peril.

Hole is a play that leaves you thinking – about the opportunities we failed to take for climate change action over the past three decades and the need for urgency now.