William Shatner is coming to Lynn Auditorium on Sunday, Oct. 16 for his one-man show “Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It.”
William Shatner, who launched his career in the 1950s, played a terrified airline passenger in a classic 1963 episode of “The Twilight Zone” and became a legend thanks to just a few seasons of “Star Trek,” is coming to Lynn Auditorium on Sunday, Oct. 16.
The one-man show, “Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It,” will feature a monologue that will touch on Shatner’s role as Capt. James T. Kirk, who commanded the Starship Enterprise on its mission to explore strange new worlds, as Sgt. T.J. Hooker, who along with Heather Locklear fought crime in Southern California, and perhaps his role as spokesman for Priceline, the travel website, for 14 years. “Shatner’s World” ran on Broadway in 2012 and The New York Times called it a “chatty, digressive and often amusing tour of his unusual acting career.”
The Item’s Thomas Grillo talked with the 85-year-old actor from his office in Hollywood.
What will your show consist of and how long will it be?
Time being relative, it goes by in an instant, it’s so entertaining. The show lasts an hour-and-a-half or two, but you may think it lasts just 10 or 15 minutes. It’s filled with laughter and tears. I tackle a number of really strange subjects from gorillas, motorcycles, love, comedy and that kind of thing. The show is about saying “yes” to life. The opportunities to say “no” are everywhere, so saying “yes” is absolutely necessary for a full and complete life. That’s what I urge you to do in the show and try to show by example what I’ve done.
Is it essentially a monologue?
That sounds so bare-bones. If the stage was filled with dancing girls, would that make it more palatable? Yes, as simple as a fireside horror story when you were a kid filled your head with the magic of the spoken word, so this also uses the language of evocation of the theater inside your mind.
Is there audience participation?
No. I don’t want you speaking out loud at all. I want your mouth agape in appreciation.
Are there visuals or is it all you?
There is a gentleman, whose first name is Lucky Dave, is back there on a computer sending up pictures on a large screen. It’s multi-media, but I exaggerate somewhat when I say the word multi.
Do you have any connections to Boston?
Many. A few weeks ago, I threw out the first pitch to the Boston Red Sox as the team faced the Arizona Diamondbacks. I was married to a beautiful Irish rose of a girl from South Boston (Nerine Kidd Shatner, who drowned in the swimming pool of their California home in 1999). I was born in Montreal, which is the Boston of Canada. I have a deep and pervasive connection with Boston. Leonard Nimoy was born in the city’s West End neighborhood and I wrote a book about him (“Leonard: My 50-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man”) where I talk about Boston and Leonard’s life in Boston. My latest book “Zero-G: Book 1” is about an FBI man in space 50 years from now and terrible things happen. It’s his quest to stop the Chinese from using a weapon that, unknown to them, could destroy the Earth.
You turned 85 earlier this year, most people are retired at that age, why are you still working?
If you hadn’t reminded me that I’m in my 80s I would have forgotten it.
Really?
That’s part of being 80, isn’t it, you don’t remember lots of things.
My sense is you don’t have to work or perform in theaters like the one in Lynn. What drives you?
Lucky Dave. I’m doing this one-man show, which in itself is a huge challenge. Standing on stage alone for an hour-and-a-half to two hours and making people laugh and cry is without a doubt the highest hurdle in theater. I’m doing it because I really love doing the show. It’s a joy to be in front of the audience and entertain them. It’s like telling a great joke that you know. When you find someone to whom you haven’t told the joke, you’re filled with relish and that’s what I am. I am looking forward to coming to Lynn and entertaining people. It’s great for me to do.
Who comes to your shows?
It’s so strange. I get people in their 80s, and I get people who are 50 whose parents introduced them to me. Then I get teenagers who say I’ve been an inspiration. I get mothers carrying their babies, because I’ve been doing a kids show for the Sprout Network (as narrator of “Clangers”) so I have a whole new audience of 3- and 4-year-olds. It’s a spectrum of every age group. This show that I’ve been doing called “Better Late Than Never” (an NBC reality travel series that also stars Henry Winkler, George Foreman and Terry Bradshaw, as they backpack through Asia without luxuries), was number one in every of those age categories and the network can’t figure it out.
I was surprised to learn that “Star Trek” ran for only three years before it was cancelled. This year, the show’s 50th anniversary was featured in many daily newspapers worldwide. When you were making it, did you ever imagine that it would be celebrated so many years later? Did you have any sense how popular it would become and that it would live on?
No. I was thinking how am I going to learn 10 pages of dialog by tomorrow. It’s like this interview. Have you any idea that 50 years from now this Q and A will be held up as an example of how to conduct an interview? That’s how far-fetched it would have been for someone to say this science fiction show would last 50 years. We were just hoping it wouldn’t get cancelled, and it did.
Clinton or Trump?
I don’t want to get into that. I’m a Canadian living here on Green card.
The United States is in love with your prime minister Justin Trudeau.
I’m in love with him too. I suggest we hang him from a flagpole and let him fly.
Thomas Grillo can be reached at [email protected].