TOM CREAN: ANTARCTIC EXPLORER

For real-life tales of adventure that put this summer's blockbusters to shame (and offer a kind of psychological relief from the season's heat), make sure you see Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer, which runs at the Irish Repertory Theatre until September 9, 2007.

Starring Aidan Dooley in a role he seems born to play, Tom Crean is a tour de force of storytelling (or, for you theater folk, "dramatic monologue") in which Dooley takes on the persona of Crean, the courageous Irishman who survived no less than three early Antarctic expeditions under Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. (Crean can be seen in the 1919 Shackleton documentary South, previously covered here.)

Dooley is completely on top of his material, sharing Crean's hard-won tales of ice and sea and courage by drawing on inner energy that takes on a theatrical force of its own. Crean actually had a reputation for not talking about what he had endured, but I'm glad Dooley took whatever liberties he needed to take in order to channel his story to audiences today. And it goes well with the recently released documentary Deep Water, which covers some of the same ocean.

I've seen tickets to Tom Crean available at TKTS.

Here are YouTube videos inspired by Crean.



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DEEP WATER

Thanks to IFC Films and The New York Observer, I saw the documentary Deep Water last night and liked it a lot. I don't want to give much of it away—and I warn you to look out for spoilers in reviews and wherever else they might be found—but I will say that it's a helluva sea yarn having to do with a round-the-world yacht race that took place in the late 1960s, and it's interesting to contemplate how ancient issues pertaining to sailing our watery planet still apply in the Space Age.

I think it's coming soon to the IFC Center and the Angelika.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

MOVIES FOR CHEAPSKATES: DEEP WATER. IFC Films and The New York Observer are offering New York City screening passes to Deep Water.

The documentary Deep Water is not about the New York City subway system. Rather, it recounts an even more dramatic round-the-world yacht race.

Screening Details:

Date Thursday, August 16, 2007
Place Downtown
Time 7:30 pm

Apply here.



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