You Will Love "Ernest Shackleton Loves Me"

Photo by Mark Frohna.

Kat is having a very bad day. And night. A struggling composer, she has been up for 36 hours straight with a crying baby and she just lost her corporate gig creating the soundtrack for a new space explorer video game. ConEd has also turned off the heat in her Brooklyn apartment. Her baby daddy/deadbeat ex-boyfriend has ghosted her to go on the road with a Journey tribute band. And in her delirium, she has signed up with a last-chance, somewhat judgmental dating app that won’t allow her to fudge her age. 

But things start looking up when a thunderstorm hits, and through a hole in the space-time continuum, English explorer Ernest Shackleton falls madly in love with Kat, after he listens to the song she composed for her dating profile. Like the sailors who have been enchanted by sirens for centuries, he is immediately smitten with Kat’s voice, her compositions, her beauty, and her creativity. Thus, the unlikeliest of bonds develops – between a desperate single mom and a seemingly doomed adventurer stranded in the Antarctic near the South Pole. In this dark, cold, hopeless night, they reach out to each other, hoping for the strength to survive. And when Shackleton tumbles into Kat’s apartment via the refrigerator, things really start to heat up. Supporting each other, they accomplish the impossible. 

This delightful, ridiculous, inspiring story is just one small part of what makes Skylight Music Theatre’s production of Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, an absolutely stunning show. Part modern art installation, part self-aware hipster history lesson, part immersive video piece, and part rock concert featuring a one-woman electronic orchestra, Shackleton is the opposite of what one might expect from a bare bones, two-person show. 

Instead, the pulsing music, the white-hot violin riffs, the emotional pitch, and the life-or-dealth challenges these two cheeky adventurers face could not be larger, or more engaging. Elevated by an invigorating, accessible score, extraordinary musicianship, and striking visual storytelling, Shackleton is an epic experience that will leave you both exhausted and uplifted. Directed with a deft mix of bravery and whimsy by Jill Anna Ponasik, the production truly exceeds the sum of all its exceptional parts. 

Photo by Mark Frohna

The first part of this extraordinary whole is the killer cast. Ernest Shackleton Loves Me was originally conceived and written, at least in part, to show off the talents of lyricist/singer/electric violinist Val Vigoda, who has a very specific and unusual set of skills. That makes casting the role of Kat extremely challenging. Enter Janice Martin, a Wisconsin-based, Juilliard-trained violinist who also sings, plays piano, and performs as an aerialist. Martin slips into Kat’s pink and orange dyed ponytails, sassy tights, black mini-dress and black leather boots with ease. Her pointy electric violin is often strapped to her neck, leaving her hands free to play the synthesizer and drums, and press buttons on her laptop to loop and layer her music electronically. 

While the recording wizardry is impressive, it’s nothing compared to watching and listening to Martin play her tricked out violin. A whirling dervish, she leaps around the stage, coaxing music out of the strings that at times mimics a wailing rock guitar, and at times lays down bass notes that could come from a cello. Looking like a cross between Cindy Lauper and a character from Rent, she sings with the same energy and abandon that she pours into her instrumental music. In lots of close harmonies with her recorded, looped self (!), as well as with Shackleton, she drives the story forward with the force of a hurricane. 

While Martin is new to Milwaukee audiences, her love Shackleton is a familiar face. Matt Daniels (also a Juilliard grad) takes on the enormous historical figure, making his Skylight debut after performing with virtually every other theater in town, as well as several turns at Forward Theater in Madison. Passionate about playing ukulele, Daniels learned to play the banjo for this role, and does so with aplomb. And while he has had singing parts in other productions, he’s never shown off the power of his entire register like he does here. His Shackleton is almost absurdly heroic, but his affection for Kat is genuine as they rescue each other from points of despair.

Photo by Mark Frohna

In addition to the often overblown Englishman, Daniels has a lot of fun portraying an array of smaller characters, including very funny, brief turns as French explorer Jacques Cousteau and the Spaniard Ponce De Leon, both of whom are hitting on Kat from across time, space, and several oceans. Daniels’s proficiency with quick changes, accents, and caricature help him out here. He even nails Kat’s useless boyfriend when the musician returns home after his tour. 

The production elements for Shackleton are also turned up to eleven. Scenic Designer Scott Davis gives the Kat a gray, sparse and colorless city apartment that turns into a great playground for the pair, with lots of set pieces — including trunks, ladders, and a glass skylight — that easily transform into boats, mountains, ice shelves, and more. Most importantly, he provides an enormous blank canvas for Patrick Lord to work with. Lord’s projections and videos using footage of Shackleton’s actual expedition are visually enveloping. They dominate that stage and yet let the two performers shine through as their songs narrate the action. The mini-screen that shows the audience Kat’s cell phone is also used in smart and surprising ways. Costuming by Kärin Simonson Kopischke is spot on, right down to the oversized animal skin mittens that Shackleton wears 0ne a rope around his neck. Finally the stage is totally transformed by masterful lighting, by Jason Fassl. Rotating lights become almost solid beams as they twist through stage fog and lots of blowing snow. Washes in purple, green, and blue transform the theater into a rock concert, the ocean, and the bottom of the world.

Photo by Mark Frohna

Finally, and a bit ironically, this production could not be better timed. Its message of perseverance, bravery in the face of the unknown, and working towards goals even when the odds are solidly against you, resonates with theater audiences, artists, the COVID-weary, and all of us who are simply girding our loins for another long winter in uncertain times. The production itself has had mountains of challenges to climb, including a one-year postponement, a cast rehearsing remotely, and a one-week delay of opening night due to omicron infections. But just as Ernest Shackleton did, this production has triumphed. Immense kudos to all involved who made this unlikely and miraculous musical happen. A show like Ernest Shackleton Loves Me is quite simply the reason I love live theater. 

Skylight Musical Theatre’s production of Ernest Shackleton Loves Me continues in the Cabot Theatre at the Broadway Theatre Center through February 6.