John de Lancie wants to be perfectly clear: “I’m not playing Trump. I’m playing Seaman.”
The actor, familiar from his work in film and television, notably as the omnipotent extraterrestrial Q from the Star Trek franchise, is currently giving a show-stopping performance as a brutish, bullying presidential candidate in Jon Robin Baitz’s Vicuña & The American Epilogue at Mosaic Theater.
“When I was first sent this, the director Bob Egan said to me, ‘It’s a Trump-like character,'” and I said, ‘I’m not doing an imitation or anything, all right?’ That would have stopped it right there for me.” Still, he concedes the parallels to Trump are in the fabric of Baitz’s potent new work. “This is a very muscular, bullyish, bully type guy who looks at everything in the terms of win or lose.” If anything, Seaman is more unnerving than Trump, seemingly far more insidious, shrewd, dangerous.
“Robbie’s point is that this is the next Trump,” says de Lancie. “This is not today. This is tomorrow. If you don’t watch out, this is where we’re going, guys.”
De Lancie is happy with his fan-revered place in the Star Trek canon, even though Q only appeared in 9 episodes over three different series: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager.
And while the role didn’t translate into massive riches for the actor (“I did not profit from it in the same way that a regular actor on a seven year television series would profit — nowhere near.”), he is content with his “cultural place in the pantheon of fictional characters.”
As for the question of Q’s fey, flamboyant, gay-leaning personality, de Lacie laughs. “I tell my gay friends that Q is bi-spacial…. That’s one of the wonderful things about playing a character that seems to have crossed many, many, many strata. He speaks to a lot of different people.” —Randy Shulman
Vicuña & The American Epilogue runs until December 3 at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. Tickets are $20 to $65. Call 202-399-7993, ext. 2 or visit MosaicTheater.org.
The season of rebirth and renewal is beautifully expressed in dance. And in that spirit, it's especially beautiful this season to see so much renewed life among dance artists, companies, and venues that have for the past few years endured the pandemic struggles and survived, or even come back stronger.
In every corner of the DMV, from Dance Place to Wolf Trap, the Kennedy Center to Hylton Performing Arts, world-class artists are making their debuts on our stages, or premiering never-before-seen works sure to excite, inspire, or push the boundaries of what we've come to expect.
"I love that you think I have more than one home," laughs Wilson Cruz, settling in at his New York apartment for what will ultimately become a wide-ranging, two-hour Zoom interview. "I am a journeyman actor who has been cobbling together a career for 30 years. That's what I am."
Truth is, Wilson Cruz is much more than that. This is the third time Cruz has been featured on a Metro Weekly cover, and he ensures that a conversation with him feels familiar, like time spent with a best friend. Talking with him is also somewhat of a unique event -- spirited, unbridled, utterly free of artifice. He is warm. He is welcoming. He is wise.
It's a little late, but still seasonal. Happy First Contact Day! This Star Trek holiday, April 5, commemorates the fictional arrival of extraterrestrial aliens in 2063. I may have enjoyed a really lovely Easter brunch this year, amid Holi and Ramadan/Eid al-Fitr, and Passover barely more than a week away, but I'm no Christian, nor any of the other recognized options.
My fantastical faith, however, has many of the traditional trappings. You want a savior to be tested in the desert? As third officer on a Pan Am flight from Karachi to Istanbul in 1947, Gene Roddenberry, who later created Star Trek, was the ranking officer to survive that ill-fated flight's crash landing in the Syrian desert.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!