The Sailor's Dream
- Chris O'Rourke
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Emily Healy, Eoin O’Sullivan, Ruairí Lenaghan, Jed Murray, Darina Gallagher in The Sailor's Dream. Image, Al Craig
***
Like the ships it purports to seek out, Jack Harte’s labour of love, The Sailor's Dream, is a romantic shipwreck. A feeling reinforced by Martin Cahill’s beachcomber’s set evoking flotsam and jetsam piled neatly onstage. A bell, a chest, some stools and a guitar all bathed in Avram Rosewood’s delicate lighting whose golden intensity tapers as it edges away from the centre. Within which the mystery of Sir John Franklin unfolds in song and story. An explorer who, in 1845, set out to discover the Northwest Passage, a sea route from Europe to Asia between the Arctic and Canada. Both his ships, the Erebus and Terror, disappearing without a trace. Not a single survivor of its 129 strong crew returning to tell their tale. Franklin’s wife, Lady Jane Franklin, a shrewd woman displaying financial acumen, relentless in her determination to discover her husband’s remains and assert his claim as discoverer of The North West Passage. That honour actually belonging to Sir John McClure. An intrepid Irishman whose Arctic Expedition in search of Franklin in 1850 saw him achieve what Franklin failed to. But not before Franklin’s wife, with help from her niece, Sophia Cracroft, along with Tennyson and Dickens, had Franklin immortalised in the Victorian imagination, culminating in a statue in Westminster Abbey. All this despite his obvious incompetence and posthumous rumours of cannibalism.
If it all sounds wonderfully intriguing, dramatically there’s little of interest. Efforts still afoot to find Franklin’s resting place unlikely to generate too much excitement given the only thing more pompous than Franklin appears to have been the British Admiralty. Textually, Harte’s language proves over wrought and over written, offering less a story so much as a work of non-fiction cleverly relayed; similar to Kevin Cronin’s, The Search for Franklin: An Irish Connection which inspired it. All of which impacts on narrative and performances, which land like dressed up lectures or direct address. Self-indulgent, blinkered, overly focused on side issues, including overt reverence for the Inuit people, The Sailor's Dream risks scuttling before it ever leaves port.
Yet somehow it doesn’t. Like a folksy sea shanty, Harte’s use of music and text, along with too many facts and too little fiction, weaves an eccentric spell that lures you in, even as its lullaby tones and tame drama risking lulling you to sleep. Harte seemingly willing it all to succeed by sheer determination. Which doesn’t account for its undeniable charm, the result of director Andy Crook working some minor and major miracles to relieve the play's textual stiffness. Leaning into rather than resisting the play’s lecturing format, supporting song solos and monologues with searing, expressive gazes, showing compositional brilliance in simple yet effective arrangements, Crook then elicits strong performances from Darina Gallagher, Emily Healy, Jed Murray, Eoin O’Sullivan and Ruairí Lenaghan. Lengahan as a guitar playing, master of ceremonies bringing it all together whilst doubling up on roles. Along with a hard working Murray and O’Sullivan. All three supporting Gallagher and Healy representing the play’s true north. An endearing Gallagher enchanting as Franklin’s determined wife, with the magnetic Healy mesmerising as Tennyson’s wife and Lady Jane’s niece. Both revealing the real focus of the story. Healy revealing a promising young talent well worth keeping an eye on.
Emily Healy in The Sailor's Dream. Image, Al Craig
If there are other quibbles, Tennyson and Dickens overplayed as caricatures for example, there are also other graces, including the easy chemistry between O’Sullivan and Murray. An engaging interplay of song and speech, smartly used tech, an invested ensemble and a director at the top of their game, The Sailor’s Dream succeeds despite obvious drawbacks. Navigating its way safely to shore whilst sailing storm tossed seas. A testament to its crew, its naviagtor and its captain. Not so much Franklin.
The Sailor’s Dream by Jack Harte runs at The New Theatre until April 12th.
For more information visit The New Theatre
