Shatner's World: We Just Live in It

Visiting with Captain Kirk is Out of This World
By Lauren Yarger
When notices appeared for William Shatner's upcoming one-man Broadway show, I realized that if I had a bucket list, seeing Captain Jim Kirk in person definitely would be on it.

I had fallen for the dashing captain of the Starship Enterprise some time back in college where a bunch of us would gather one night a week in the dorm lounge for reruns of the popular television series. I had missed the original series broadcast, not being a big fan of sci-fi at that time, but I branched out a lot in college and along with consuming new and sometimes unidentifiable foods in the cafeteria, I agreed to watch "Star Trek" with my new dorm mates.

I found the show's bizarre aliens amusing, but it didn't take long to see that there was some real intelligence behind everything, from the interracial/international crew, which was new for its time, to the design of the starship, which ran on computers (with hard floppy disks-- again unheard of at the time) and warp drive. Crew communicated on devices not unlike today's smart phones and soon I was hooked, but more because of the dashing Kirk than the technology or smart story plots.

One episode finds Kirk stranded on a planet while The Enterprise is under attack while orbiting. Using his I-phone-like communicator, Kirk barks out the order, "Don't worry about me. Save my ship!" That did it, I was a follower of Captain Kirk and William Shatner, the dashing, if sometimes overacting guy who played him.

Now, more than 30 years later, he's still a lot of fun to watch in action, this time as he reflects over his 50-year career and a life full of ups and downs in Shatner's World: We Just live in It playing a limited engagement at the Music Box Theatre. It's a fun trip down memory lane by an obviously nice guy, who ended up in the right place at the right time more than once, and who isn't afraid to laugh at himself.

I attended Wednesday, before the official opening last night, and started smiling as the packed crowd began applauding when the house lights went to half. Obviously there were a lot of other Captain Kirk fans in those seats with me too. With such a long-running career, they also might also have been fans of characters Shatner has played on other shows, like "Boston Legal," "T.J. Hooker" or "Rescue 911," which was probably the first reality TV series.
Interestingly, Shatner, directed on stage by Scott Faris, doesn't spend a lot of time talking about "Star Trek," but shares stories about his earlier years growing up in Canada, as "the worst student ever at McGill University," hitchhiking across America and generally failing at everything until finding work as an actor. He understudied Christopher Plummer at the prestigious Stratford Shakespeare Festival and has never looked back.

The one-hour-and-40-minute presentation is really entertaining and fun if you're a Shatner fan. I particularly enjoyed a story he shared about having to kill a rat in his camper. The difference between frightened real person and the unfaltering confidence of fearless, alien-battling Kirk have never been so defined or funny.

At the end, the crowd was satisfied: a standing ovation with more than one hand raised in a Vulcan salute. Live long and prosper, Bill.

Shatner's World plays through March 4 at the Music Box, 239 West 45th St., NYC. A 15-city tour is planned following the Broadway run. For information and tickets, visit http://shatnersworld.com/.

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