Spalding Gray splashed into the national consciousness with the epic monologue-cum-performance piece "Swimming to Cambodia" (1985), a distinctive solo show that has been on the road in some incarnation for well-nigh 20 years. He cut his teeth on Postmodern performance theory...
[more]Spalding Gray splashed into the national consciousness with the epic monologue-cum-performance piece "Swimming to Cambodia" (1985), a distinctive solo show that has been on the road in some incarnation for well-nigh 20 years. He cut his teeth on Postmodern performance theory with SoHo's experimental Performance Group, the nucleus of the notoriously radical Wooster Group. Gray drifted away from abstract improvisation with objects and focused more fully on the autobiographical material that magnetized the group's rehearsal process. Gray's public self-analysis became his trademark, along with his remarkable skill in uncovering deep truths that resonate with social, political, and even spiritual significance. Nowhere is this more evident than in "Swimming," which details his experiences filming "The Killing Fields" in Southeast Asia and subtly interweaves poignant, absurd, and terrifying observations of a country still reeling from wartime devastation. Gray's autobiographical tales teem with hilarious set pieces and relentless self-scrutiny, blending profound themes with sharply etched characters and a mordant wit.
Critics have denounced his tendency toward cranky, detached, and cynical self-absorption: how much do we need to know about his masturbatory habits, neuroses, and infidelities, anyway? His last major effort, "Gray's Anatomy" (1996), finds a middle-aged Gray seeking an alternative to surgery for an eye that's slowly, stubbornly going blind. Now a film by Steven Soderbergh (of "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" fame), Gray's ongoing midlife crisis (he's 55 years old) features digressions and hysterical, perceptive ruminations on everything from Native American sweat lodges to Filipino psychic surgeons. Yet for all Gray's regrets, excessive navel-gazing, and public indiscretions, the master of the monologue seems in top form. The merciless plundering of his psyche is now tempered with a self-awareness that has silenced the ironic observer and called forth a new side of Gray -- one that embraces unadulterated, authentic emotion.
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