Sunday, February 13, 2011

Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell

I've been a Spalding Gray fan for some time.  I've seen him in the film, "The Killing Fields", and I've watched some of the 18 monologues he wrote and performed around the US, Australia and Europe.  There is nothing, apparently, about his life that he did not reveal in his monologues.   He writes, "I came to know my life through the telling of it".
One of his monologues is "Swimming to Cambodia" about making the movie "The Killing Fields".   In addition to "The Killing Fields", he also appeared in "Beaches" in 1988 and "The Paper" with Micheal Keaton in 1994.
The performance tonight was quite different than what I expected.  The stories were from the life of Spalding Gray but they were performed by a cast of five actors, both men and women.  Each one gave monologues.  None of the actors, well, interacted.  Each one was Spalding Gray.  Roberta thought that made it much more interesting.   I enjoy listening to, and watching, Spalding Gray so very much that I could have happily listened to a single actor delivering the lines instead of five different actors.  Nevertheless, the performance was quite entertaining and runs through the end of February at the Custom Made Theater in the Trinity Episcopal Church on the corner of Bush and Gough.  The run has, in fact, been extended because it is a popular show.

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