UCLA Performing Arts Spalding Gray brings his
Obie Award-winning one-man show, "Swimming to Cambodia," to UCLA’s
Freud Playhouse this week.
By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin Reporter
Stand-up comedy or drama? Acting or simply being himself? These
are questions that Spalding Gray encounters every day as part of
his work as a monologuist.
Performing his breakthrough monologue “Swimming to
Cambodia,” Gray revisits his past personal experiences and
tries to bring them back for the audience at the UCLA Freud
Playhouse over six consecutive days starting tonight. His
monologues are fast, anecdotal stories told colloquially as one-way
conversations. Gray’s style falls somewhere between Woody
Allen and Mark Twain, two people to whom Gray is often
compared.
His current performance of “Cambodia” has the
distinction of being a revival, something which Gray has never done
with any of his 18 monologues, a personal tradition he started in
1977. Spanning the last 25 years, the monologues have changed along
with the person.
“The change is in the monologues. I’ve become a
father and more of a homebody,” Gray said. “I’ve
changed in that way, and, hopefully, (am) less of a
narcissist.”
Yet the narcissism lives on, even though it’s somewhat
muted. Gray not only feels that his monologues satisfy his creative
urges, but that they are also something completely original and
unique to himself.
“I’ve been doing the monologue for 20 years, even
longer. I’ve perfected the artform,” Gray said.
“It’s something I really thrive on. I’ve tried
other forms of theater and I just don’t do them as well. I
really invented it.”
Preparation for the performance, however, is not anything like a
standard memorization of the script. As a storyteller, Gray must
make each performance flow organically, allowing it to evolve
slightly from show to show.
In fact, in a recent performance, Gray failed to find a place on
his prop map, prompting knowledgeable audience members to help him.
Certainly after almost 20 years since the monologue was created,
Gray feels that he can still do “Cambodia” while
allowing for a few kinks and surprises.
“I don’t rehearse. I listen to tapes of myself but I
don’t memorize (the monologues). I speak them from the movie
I see in my head. I visualize the scenes that I describe in words.
My words change but they also remain the same. It’s the same
monologue,” Gray said.
“It’s hard to say the same old stories. You have to
act, not like you did it the first time, but like you’re
doing it now,” Gray continued.
“Cambodia” itself is about Gray’s experience
auditioning for and filming the Oscar-winning “The Killing
Fields.” In the film, Gray plays an assistant to the United
States consul amid the historical backdrop of the murderous Khmer
Rouge in Cambodia.
After “The Killing Fields” was released in 1983,
Gray decided to turn the experience into “Cambodia,” an
addition to one of his many monologues. Jonathan Demme, who is
famous for directing “The Silence of the Lambs,” later
turned Gray’s monologue into a 1987 film version, which
enjoyed success in arthouses.
Since then, Gray has acted opposite Dolly Parton, Bette Midler,
and even has had a part in a pornographic film, “The
Farmer’s Daughter.” Yet for all his experience with
film, Gray still prefers to have people attending live
performances.
“What’s lacking in film is presence. Film is
celluloid,” Gray said. “My acting career is a hobby. I
do it when I have space for it.”
Growing up in Rhode Island, Gray later moved to New York, where
he founded the Wooster Group, a drama troop named because their
theater, the Performance Garage, was located on Wooster Street.
Around 1977, Gray discovered the talent that today he practices
almost exclusively.
“I was doing direct address to the audience as part of a
show and I liked that so I started doing it as a form,” Gray
said.
Today, Gray seems just as able to continue his monologue
tradition, even mentioning his recent car accident in Ireland as
another possible source of material for his show. His newest
monologue, “Morning, Noon, and Night,” also features
the new developments in his life concerning becoming a father and a
husband and moving into a new house. Taking place over the course
of a day, Gray even talks candidly about his sexual relationship
with his wife and his personal feelings about his children.
Yet Gray insists that he is a private person, shifting between
what he considers his personal self at home and his presentational
self on stage.
“I’m 60 years old but the monologue is only an hour
and a half. I have a lot of life that’s private. I draw the
line in many places and (in) subtle ways,” Gray said.
THEATER: Spalding Gray is performing at
UCLA’s Freud Playhouse today through Saturday at 8 p.m. and
Sunday at 2 p.m. For more information and to purchase tickets, call
the Central Ticket Office at (310) 825-2101.