PAL Studio Theatre to November 24, 2024
Tickets from $30 at 604-363-5734 or www.westerngoldtheatre.org/on-stage
Posted November 11, 2024
If you’ve never heard of Tom Crean (CREE-an), you’re not alone. Unlike explorers Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, Crean didn’t keep a diary and so his exploits are only known through the diaries of Scott, Shackleton and other Antarctic explorers all of whom wrote of Irish seaman Crean’s courage, perseverance and high spirits. When conditions became really treacherous during Crean’s several expeditions in the race to reach the South Pole (Discovery Expedition, 1901-1910; Terra Nova Expedition, 1910-1913; Endurance Expedition, 1914-1917), he could be counted on to keep everyone’s spirits up. In gale-force winds and howling seas, he was reputed to sing – albeit badly – while at the tiller.
Irish actor Aidan Dooley, the creator/solo performer in this Play On Words Theatre Company (Kent, UK) production, presented by Western Gold Theatre and CelticFest Vancouver, brings Crean and his exploits so grippingly to life, I began to think the theatre was actually getting cold: Antarctica’s minimum winter temperature, he tells us, is -90° Celsius with 80mph being the average wind strength. Damn, that’s cold! Maybe consider taking a hot cup of tea instead of a glass of wine into the theatre when you go?
What do you wear when it’s that cold? Tightly woven cotton because when you’re part of a four-man team dragging an 800 lb. sledge over ice for eight or ten or twelve hours each day, you would sweat profusely wearing anything else. (In desperate times, there were only three men or even two men hauling that weighty sledge when the others were too ill to harness up.) You can’t afford to sweat because if you did and you stopped hauling, sweat immediately becomes ice all over your body and it would kill you. Aidan dons each piece of clothing, describing as he goes, its function and advantage; from leather boots and puttees to a great baggy ‘dress’ and balaclava, Dooley is eventually completely encased in drab, grey cotton clothing.
The horrifying conditions and the incredible fortitude of the men almost defies description. But describe it Dooley does: hurtling down icy glaciers, barely missing crevasses. “Hauling and dragging, dragging and hauling” for hours, weeks and months on end. Being separated from their sledge and drifting to sea on an ice floe, hoping the ocean current would take them close to somewhere where, miraculously, there might be help. Sleeping on a five-foot thick slab of floe ice with 12,500 feet of black, icy water below. Or sleeping on merely a foot of floe ice with 12,500 feet of water below. Fashioning a lifeboat and landing on an island only to discover only one of three men – Crean – was still strong enough to cross the last ice-covered mountain peak to a semi-abandoned whaling station on the other side of the island. With only four biscuits and a bit of chocolate for sustenance, Crean arrived at the station after eighteen hours and terrified everyone with his appearance: bearded, ragged, and so exhausted it took him twenty minutes to speak.
What possesses a person to embark on such risky endeavours? For Crean it was to go where no Irishman had been before. Discovering the undiscovered. Certainly it was not for fame and fortune although he did receive the Albert Medal for Bravery for what Antarctic historians have called, “the finest feat of individual heroism from the entire age of exploration”.
Dooley has a finely-tuned sense of comedy and so, in spite of the rigours and hardships of Crean’s time in Antarctica, the play is nevertheless full of humour. Jabs at the British: “Let the English think they’re in charge.” In 800 years of the Irish dealing with them, “that’s all we have learned.” He does a cheeky routine as Mrs. Chippy, the ship’s cat staying just outside the range of the expedition’s furiously barking dogs. And, of course, there’s that lovely Irish accent coming at you. Less a play than a passion-filled piece of storytelling, Tom Crean – Discovering Antarctica is enacted on a simple set with wooden crates, a white sheet and a large wooden sledge hanging on the wall behind. Dooley is a thoroughly engaging performer who masterfully takes us on Crean’s journey from poking fun at himself to tears of relief and joy when the mission to save his fellow seamen succeeds.
Did Crean make it to the South Pole? No. But the conclusion of this two-hour entertainment has a happy ending as Crean, now married to Nell and father of two, becomes a publican attempting to come up with a name for his pub. Take a guess. And dress warmly.