Spalding Gray was an American actor and writer known for his autobiographical monologues performed from the 1980s-1990s. He would sit on stage with just a chair, notepad, desk, and glass of water, directly facing the audience as he recounted stories from his life. His monologues were often humorous and explored his personal experiences and struggles with themes like his mother's suicide. Some of his most famous works included Swimming to Cambodia and It's a Slippery Slope. Gray considered his performances a form of therapy to share and process his memories and emotions with an audience.

1. SPALDING
GRAY

2. Spalding Gray
■ June 1941 - January 2004
■ Born in Providence, Rhode Island, United States
■ American actor and writer. Considered himself an author.
■ He is known for his autobiographical monologues that he wrote and performed in the
80s and 90s.

3. Humble Beginnings
■ He started by telling his stories and experiences to his friends. In 1970, he joined
Richard Schechter's experimental troupe, The Performance Group. Later he created
the The Wooster Group with his former girlfriend Elizabeth LeCompte.
■ He began to experiment with transforming his experiences into stage pieces.
■ Initially, quite a few of his plays focused on his family (in part as an attempt to
overcome his mother’s suicide in 1967).
■ One day, he decided to simply sit at a desk. He spoke about everything he could
remember in his life but it lacked flow. However, he stated that the experiences
‘unlocked’ his memories and tried again with a small audience consisting of his
friends.

4. Performance
■ He was a shy child but overcame his fear of performing when he improvised a moment
in a play. He performed a hopscotch on a rug to which the audience laughed. From
that moment he said that he was addicted to performing.
■ His set consisted of a chair, a notepad, a desk and a glass of water. He faced the
audience directly.
■ His performances were stories from his life in America ranging from the death of his
cocker spaniel to the cheerleaders’ convention he attended.
■ He said that he found it therapeutic to share his experiences and emotions.
■ He tried more conventional therapy, but stopped when he realised that the therapist
was just witnessing debut performances and being paid for it.

5. Well-KnownWorks
SpaldingGray’s most well known works consist of:
■ Swimming to Cambodia (1985) – monologue.
■ Sex and Death to the Age 14 (1986) – a collection of six early monologues.
■ Monster in a Box (1992) – monologue.
■ ImpossibleVacation (1992) – novel.
■ Gray'sAnatomy (1994) – monologue.
■ FirstWords (1996) – audio cd about his childhood.
■ It's a Slippery Slope (1997) – monologue.

6. Monologues
■ His monologues were often whimsical and self-mocking.
■ Swimming to Cambodia, arguably his most well known work, was inspired by his
experiences acting a small part in The Killing Fields.
■ The Killing Fields was a British drama film about the Khmer Rouge (followers of the
communist party in Cambodia) regime, based on the experiences of two journalists.

7. The Desk
■ It could be interpreted that his performance was intended to act like a story from a
newspaper.Though instead of writing the story down, he directly spoke to the
audience- as if they were the readers of the newspaper.
■ It could also be interpreted that we are ‘jumping’ into Spalding’s private life.The
desk could be symbolic of his home and as the audience, we sit in his home whilst he
tells his stories.

8. Gray’sTechnique
■ He would sit in a chair unabashedly (without embarrassment or shame) emoting
directly into a camera.
■ By doing this, he links himself to realityTV. For example, cast members confess their
feelings to a video lens. Gray does this through external and internal dialogues. It
could therefore be argued that his style in confessional.
■ He was a storyteller and manipulates his voice carefully.
■ His performance style used impressionistic memories, as opposed to factual reality.

9. Relationship with theAudience
■ He treats his performances as a therapeutic session with the audience, using them to
recount his memories.
■ There is no pretence to becoming someone else.The audience see him as himself.
■ The stories he told and comedy that stemmed from this was universal. Everyone can
understand it because it was so grounded.

10. RecordTape
■ Gray used to sit in his basement with a tape recorder and use it to listen back to his
own work.This allowed his to fine tune what to include in the actual performance.
■ Rumstick Road (1977) was about his mother's death, so he used tape-recorded
interviews from members of his family.

11. American Dream
■ He never made his views on the ‘American Dream’ clear.
■ One of the defining factors of Spalding’s depression was when his family decided to
sell his house he grew up in. He was a man who valued family dearly.
■ He clearly considered America a place of opportunity but never explicitly said this in
his performances.

12. Examples of Gray’sWork
■ And Everything Is Going FineTrailer:
■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3qs42Cx0EA
■ Various Sound clips:
■ http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/audio/2010/gray/gray_transcript.html