To hear Shatner tell it in his down-to-earth, chummy monologue called Shatner's World: We Just Live in It - which opened Thursday night on Broadway and is coming to Philadelphia for a one-nighter next month - his easy way of saying "yes, I can do that," has dropped him almost by chance into Shakespeare, into record studios, onto stages with Christopher Plummer and Tyrone Guthrie and other greats, and TV studios with Candice Bergen, John Laroquette, James Spader and, of course, Leonard Nimoy. (It's also taken him in directly into some real drek in down years when the money's been tight.)
But this makes it sound as though Shatner, now 80, just kept getting lucky, and doesn't really address the notion that he wouldn't have the opportunity to say "yes" if he didn't have the accompanying talent.
Shatner's World is equal parts endearing and funny - a mixture of two worlds, really: everyday and rarefied. The show is a must for Shatner fans, but you needn't be all that familiar with his work to understand a lot about him through his stories, which travel from his roots in Montreal through college there at McGill University, and jobs that grew more challenging with each "yes."
Judiciously chosen clips round out the monologue, which he wrote, and are shown on a large round background screen displays some sort of galaxy (natch). When a shot of the young Shatner - big-eyed and pouty and singularly handsome - flashes on that backdrop, you see instantly a guy whose looks matched his talent.
"A few years," he says when he comes on stage, "a few pounds." His delivery brings to mind the late and brilliant radio monologist Jean Shepherd, who for decades charmed radio listeners with stories he told on himself and slick commentary on the times. "I am standing in a field in Utah," Shatner begins, and the epiphany to this tale may be a surprise 15 minutes later, in the middle of another anecdote.
