Ernest Shackleton Loves Me

Musical, Performance (2009)

With Valerie Vigoda (Kat) and Wade McCollum (Ernest Shackleton, et al.)

Kat (Valerie Vigoda) has a young child, has been abandoned by the father, and is losing her current contract for doing music tracks for a video game. On the edge of despair, she seeks out companionship on a Lover Leftovers site and winds up getting in contact with the legendary Antarctic explorer, Ernest Shackleton (Wade McCollum). The romance takes off from there, with Kat and Shackleton imaginatively navigating his Antarctic adventure together and bolstering one another’s spirits.

What a fabulously wild, crazy ride this is, and full of zip, talent and pure fun.

Valerie Vigoda, who plays the single mother, does it with musical finesse throughout, playing a six stringed electric violin with panache, singing gorgeously, and managing all kinds of sound effects. Wade McCollum, as Shackleton, and a few other characters, carries off the multiple roles with brilliant exuberance, and plays the banjo and sings up a storm as well.

The lyrics, by Vigoda, are terrifically down to earth and very much to the point. The whole vibe is upbeat, and the message itself about being upbeat, with a ridiculously upbeat and self-parodying Shackleton, McCollum adeptly conveying the positive message as well as the satire in one fell, and coherent, swoop.

Great projections of stills and films of Shackleton’s actual voyage (unbelievably, a photographer-filmmaker was along for the trip in 1914) enhance the performance significantly, all included ingeniously and very effectively.

At one point, near the end of the voyage, Shackleton and Kat have to scale a mountain range and they both climb high up on a scaffold onstage, peering way down to the audience. It’s a simple, but highly moving stunt and makes for a wonderfully dramatic moment.

The final parts of the narrative are hugely funny. Shackleton gives way to Vasco da Gama, also played by McCollum, and the two have a face-off over Kat. Her errant boyfriend, again played by McCollum, enters the scene at various points adding hilarity and drama.

Vigoda’s and McCollum’s tight delivery of songs and of music, combined with a totally lively and wackily offbeat script, make for a fabulous show. It runs just an hour and a half without intermission, but it covers a lot of ground, and ice, in that time and one walks away most satisfied.

This production certainly keeps in line with ArtsEmerson’s now solid tradition of bringing offbeat and interesting theatre to Boston, for fairly short runs. Catch this one if you can – it’s upbeat, wacky and well-done, and full of adventure, literally and figuratively.

– BADMan