TOM CREAN - Antartic Explorer
Subject: Quicktake - "Tom Crean - Antartic Explorer" by Aidan Doyle
Date: Thursday, Jan 26, 12:04 AM
Quicktake on TOM CREAN - ANTARTIC EXPLORER
Aidan Doyle's rousing performance of his one-man docudrama, "Tom Crean - Antartic Explorer" will remind anyone complaining about the cold of a New England winter how easy we have here. Crean, an Irishman bosun in the Royal Navy, accompanied both Scott and Shackleton on their attempts to reach the South Pole. The two act tale of his experiences draws his audience in as only a first-class storyteller can. The facts of Crean's adventures are astounding enough, but Galwayman Doyle's genial Irish style, in the grand tradition of the sennachie, makes these almost unbelievable journeys real once again.
The voyages of Scott's "Discovery" and "Terra Nova", as well as Shackleton's "Endurance" have been the subject of PBS documentaries as well as several touring museum exhibitions, but a closeup view based on the experiences of one of the crew provides a truer window into that time only a hundred years ago when Antartica was truly Terra Incognita. Doyle employs his considerable skill as a raconteur, clown, and writer to make "Tom Crean", who ends his days keeping the "South Pole", the pub he built in his hometown of Annascaul in Kerry, an admirable everyman, forging ahead into adversity, deserving of the four Royal medals the seaman won. Performed on a square of canvas with a few homey props to make the period more real, A long wooden sled of the type which the intrepid explorers of the Antartic towed across the ice, in some places four miles thick, at other times perilously thin over the polar seas hangs behind him against the black backdrop. "Tom Crean - Antartic Explorer", which won Best Solo Performance at the New York International Fringe Festival in NYC in 2003, is a mesmerizing tribute to indomitable human spirit and the survival value of a sense of humor.
Doyle's show, which had its second successful run at Burlington's Northern Stage this past fall, is only part of a busy career centering around his company, "Play on Words" which tours schools and small theatres throughout the U.K. from a home base in Rochester, England. A return visit to Boston would be welcomed sooner rather than later.
"Tom Crean - Antartic Explorer" by Aidan Doyle, Jan 25 - Feb. 11
Sugan Theatre Co. in Plaza Theatre, BCA
529 Tremont, Boston /(617) 933 - 8600
Sugan
posted by will at 12:21 AM
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