Summer's End Brings Last Chance To Experience The Frozen Antarctic

By John Mooney

Who would have thought that an 11-minute museum presentation would result in a one man show that has toured all over the world?

Aidan Dooley, the star of TOM CREAN, ANTARCTIC EXPLORER, has played roles of historical characters in museums throughout the UK and Ireland. The London-based writer/actor has portrayed WWII Londoners who lived during the blitz and Irish laborers. But it was a role presented to him by the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, that changed his life.

"The Maritime Museum presented a big exposition on the great explorers of the 20th Century. In 2002, a biography of Tom Crean by Michael Smith was published that included diary entries and new insights. Crean was unique because he traveled to Antarctica with both Shackleton and Scott," said Dooley, who also runs London's Play on Words Theatre, which produces educational shows geared towards children and teens.

Tom Crean was an integral member of the three most important Antarctic expeditions of the 20th century and one of Ireland's unsung heroes. He was a big man of boundless courage good spirits who helped his comrades endure life-threatening situations. On the second Scott expedition, Crean performed one of greatest feats of individual heroism in polar history when he trekked across 36 miles of Antarctica to help rescue a comrade incapacitated by scurvy. Facing unimaginable peril in the South Atlantic, he made a dangerous 17-day crossing of the world's coldest and roughest waters in a 22-foot lifeboat with Shackleton. During the Age of Polar Exploration, Tom Crean spent more time on the ice than either Scott or Shackleton, both of whom became much more celebrated.

In his solo performance, Aidan Dooley takes the audience through peaks and valleys of emotions as steep as the Antarctic glaciers themselves. The barebones staging and the actor's drab layered clothing (credited to Burberry, the upscale clothier) convey the starkness of the frozen continent, which became an obsession during the early years of the 20th century. The play is a frequently humorous recounting of the trials and tragedies of a three-time traveler to the planet's most remote place.

The presentation was well received at the Maritime Museum. After nearly a year of performances, the interpretation officer at the museum suggested bringing the show to Annaschaul, Co. Kerry, Crean's hometown.

"The first night I performed it in front of his two living children and grandchildren. They were happy that I portrayed him as a genial, honest, and humble man," Dooley explained. "That's when I realized the show could exist outside the museum setting. There is an appetite for it in Ireland."

The Galway native then started process of building the show. He won best one man show at the International Fringe Festival in 2003. Once he had that pedigree, the show was reviewed by the Irish Times and Independent in London. Eventually, Irish theaters contacted the writer/actor to bring the show there. He has been "slogging it out" on 3-4 week tours for the past several years. Radio exposure on RTE raised platform higher than ever. Earlier this year, he had two separate runs at the Olympia Theater in Dublin.

His visa sponsor in the U.S. is the Northern Stage Theater in White River Junction, VT. One of the big donors to the theatre saw the show while on a CIE tour of Galway and said she would make her annual donation only if the theatre staged Dooley's production. Ciaran O'Reilly later saw it in Boston and asked Dooley to bring the show to the Irish Rep.

The show is ever evolving. If a new line works, the actor will incorporate it. The show has evolved greatly since the first museum performances, which lasted only 11-12 minutes.

"Whatever stories capture the audience's imagination, I keep. When I saw attention waning in 7-9 year-old children, I knew the subject matter wasn't interesting enough," Dooley explained. "When I brought it to New York, I tailored it for an American audience that might not understand the Irish humor. A huge amount of non-Irish people are attending the show."

The set at the Irish Rep includes a sled and not much else. When he tours in Ireland and the UK, he normally does not even have the sled, since everything needs to fit in the back of his car. Although he is open to the use of technology to show photographs of The Endurance sinking into the Arctic ice, he has not incorporated it into the show because it would require additional production support. Instead he focuses primarily on the simplicity of the narrative, the storytelling.

"I see myself as a modern day seanachie. This show would work in your kitchen, as well as a big theatre. I can do it in a school hall or a church basement. It doesn't need production for it to work," said Dooley, who wonders what inspired Tom Crean to go to Antarctica three times and why he was so quiet about it in the later years of his life.

"He was involved in a trial in 1919 where young man accused of attacking a Black & Tan officer. One man was shot, the other pleaded that he had been working on a farm with the explorer Tom Crean, whom the British knew lived in the area," said Dooley, a married father of two, who grew up in the Claddagh area. "No one really knows if the young man was actually with him, but Crean vouched for him."

During his post-exploration lifetime in Ireland, Crean never promoted himself. However, his pub, the South Pole Inn, kept his memory strong. He has always been remembered in the Dingle peninsula, and they still teach about him in the local schools.

"I admire Tom Crean's optimism, his pure drive. I'm a bit of a pessimist myself," said the actor, who left a steady job at Allied Irish Bank in 1987 to attend drama school in London. "I realized that I wanted to be an actor and considered being able to make a living and keep a roof over my head as a success. I left a bank job and stepped into the unknown world of self-employment."

Following a successful eight-week run at the Irish Rep in New York, Dooley is planning a small tour of the UK for six weeks. Then he will look into presenting it at a big venue in London and possibly making it into a movie.

"I don't think I'd be in it. The film would need Liam Neeson or someone with that sort of screen presence to bring Tom Crean's story to a wide audience."