For you, Houston
Death defying William Shatner thrills with his fearless tales of NASA, Star Trekand co-stars
William Shatner in Shatner's WorldPhoto by Joan Marcus
A scene from Shatner's WorldPhoto by Joan Marcus
One would think that an 81-year-old actor’s theatrical retrospective that explored the death of a horse, the death of a father, the death of a spouse, the death of one of the most beloved Sci-Fi characters ever, and the end of the space shuttle program, would be, well, deathly depressing, but this is Shatner’s World (we just live in it). And William Shatner pratfalls in the face of death.
Shatner’s one-man Broadway show is on tour and it (forgive me) beamed into Houston Friday night to a full and eclectic Society for the Performing Arts crowd at Jones Hall. No one was wearing a Starfleet uniform and the audience seemed just as interested in Shatner’s recounting of his early days tackling Shakespeare at the acclaimed Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario as they did in his stories of life on the Star Trek and Boston Legal sets.
Shatner’s performance as Pop Culture Icon William Shatner, had something for pretty much every type of geek. Science fiction, Shakespeare, Broadway, horse, NASA, and even music geeks . . .
For a little over two hours, with no intermission, the just-turned 81-year-old wandered back and forth across the stage, telling stories of his life and acting exploits, punctuating those stories with video clips and photos.
Using only a rolling chair as a prop and backed by a screen of starlight, Shatner’s performance as Pop Culture Icon William Shatner, had something for pretty much every type of geek. Science fiction, Shakespeare, Broadway, horse, NASA, and even music geeks could all find a tale to love during Shatner’s rambling reminiscences.
Shatner began with his 2006 Comedy Central Roast where he entered on a horse to the insults of George Takei. They’ve been infamously feuding for years. From the Comedy Central Roast he jumped to stories of his childhood and an old burlesque theatre he used to sneak into in his hometown of Montreal. (Yes, Captain Kirk is Canadian.) What connects the these two beginning stories is his love of comedy.
Like Kirk, the tales of Shatner’s life he told during the performance would not be bound by time or space. Instead the actor, who is also a best-selling author, organized these life stories around some major themes, like life, death, love and comedy.
The Houston audience seems to also be greatly moved by Shatner’s account of his ongoing relationship with NASA.
Early in the show, while recounting a hitchhiking trip he made across the United States before starting college, Shatner said, “You never learn more than when you’re on a journey and don’t know the destination.” This seemed to be the overarching theme as well as the organizing principle of both Shatner’s World, the show, and probably William Shatner’s life.
Shatner hit many of the highlights of his early acting career from his early days in Montreal summer theatre and Canadian radio to his seasons doing Shakespeare, to his move to New York and his time on the Broadway stage at night while doing live television on his off evenings. Along this meandering retrospective journey he dished both dirt and insights on the acting process and those actors he met onstage and off.
Some of his most poignant stories, however, had little or nothing to do with his acting career. Shatner is an owner and breeder of Saddlebred And Quarter Horses, and in the show he spends many minutes sharing stories of the life and death of his horse, Sultan’s Great Day. The audience was completely silent as Shatner told of Great Day’s last day.
Later the Houston audience seems to also be greatly moved by Shatner’s account of his ongoing relationship with NASA. During a visit at the time of the Apollo Program, he was invited to sit in the LEM. Decades later, he recorded a wake up call for Discovery for the final day it was docked to the International Space Center.
Ever the consummate showman, he also pandered to H-Town with some Dallas jokes and topped them off with the truth: “That’s called pandering, friends.”
Though many of Shatner’s stories centered on death and endings, the continuing message was “Life is a risk,” and “Saying yes is a risk,” but always take the risk because love in all its weird forms (he once told Koko the gorilla he loved her) is the only answer to death.
He ended the show recounting a music career even odder than his acting accomplishments. His spoken rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” will always be a classic. Brad Paisley’s “Real,” written for Shatner’s 2004 album Has Been, played the larger than life star out. The song and show finish with the lines, “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m real.”
No disappointment at all, Bill.
