Baby, it’s cold out­side. “Heat”, by New Zealand play­wright Lin­da Chan­wai-Ear­le, returns to Welling­ton after its 2008 debut at Bats. I did­n’t quite know what to expect of this icy Antarc­tic tale, but I end­ed up real­ly enjoy­ing it, and found it sur­pris­ing­ly mov­ing.

Set in an iso­lat­ed research hut in Antarc­ti­ca, it focus­es on cou­ple Stel­la and John. They’re both sci­en­tists — she stud­ies pen­guins and he the ozone hole — and they’re alone togeth­er for the pitch­black Antarc­tic win­ter. There’s been a tragedy in their past, and the claus­tro­pho­bia of spend­ing six months iso­lat­ed in a tiny hut in a dark cli­mate soon takes its toll.

But they are not alone. The third char­ac­ter is Bob the pen­guin, a favourite of Stel­la’s from a pre­vi­ous vis­it. He’s poor­ly and so Stel­la lets him live in their hut, much to John’s annoy­ance — it’s a tiny hut and Bob’s a big ol’ emper­or pen­guin.

John and Bob the pen­guin share a moment

“Heat” has a real mag­i­cal feel­ing to it. The set uses min­i­mal light­ing to great effect, and Gareth Far­r’s sound design brings an atmos­pher­ic edge. And the the­atre itself had its air­con­di­tion­ing cranked down low to add to the icy mood — not unpleas­ant­ly cold, butif it’s a hot sum­mer’s day, make sure you’re wear­ing more than a t‑shirt.

The cast is superb, with Kate Pri­or as Stel­la, Simon Vin­cent as John, and Bry­on Coll as Bob. Bry­on Coll is not only naked, apart from some pen­guiny body paint, he also man­ages to, well, act like a pen­guin, to the point where it’s very easy to for­get you’re look­ing at a naked man, rather than an actu­al pen­guin.

But despite all the mag­i­cal flour­ish­es, at the heart of Heat is a very sim­ple yet strong sto­ry of a rela­tion­ship between a woman and a man. I high­ly rec­om­mend Heat.

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And you may have noticed a ship­ping con­tain­er out the back of Cir­ca. It has a wind-pow­ered tur­bine and solar pan­els, which are direct­ly fed into the Cir­ca Two the­atre, mean­ing the entire play is pow­ered off the grid.

It’s a cool con­cept, and ties in with both the play’s Antarc­tic hut set­ting, and also the need for sus­tain­able ener­gy sources.

  • Heat plays at Cir­ca The­atre until 19 Feb­ru­ary.