Further Reading
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
Gray, Spalding. "About Three Places in Rhode Island." The Drama Review 23, No. 1 (March 1979): 31-42.
Recollection by Gray of his early experiences in the theater and the development of Sakonnet Point, Rumstick Road, and Nayatt School.
OVERVIEWS AND GENERAL STUDIES
Dace, Tish. "Monologues in the Making." Plays and Players, No. 389 (February 1986): 16-17.
Admiring profile that praises Gray's style: "his phraseology, his structure, his relatively uninflected voice and relaxed face, a tempo of rapid patter punctuated by purposeful pauses."
D'Erasmo, Stacey. "Gray Matters." Harper's Bazaar, No. 3365 (May 1992): 46, 135.
General appreciation of Gray and his work. D'Erasmo states, "Gray deserves an award for making the spoken word terrifying and spectacular to a mass audience."
Gentile, John S. "Spalding Gray." In his Cast of One: One-Person Shows from the Chatauqua Platform to the Broadway Stage, pp. 148-52. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Links Gray to the solo performance tradition "that is rooted in the art of storytelling and the basic human need to hear and to tell stories."
McGuigan, Cathleen. "Gray's Eminence." Newsweek CVIII, No. 4 (28 July 1986): 69.
Declares that Gray "has reinvented the oral tradition."
Shank, Theodore. "Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte: The Wooster Group." In his American Alternative Theater, pp. 170-79. New York: Grove Press, 1982.
Focuses on the autobiographical content of Gray's work, particularly Three Places in Rhode Island.
Shewey, Don. "The Year of Spalding Famously." Village Voice XXIX, No. 46 (13 November 1984): 99, 107.
Profile of Gray that stresses his status as an "underground celebrity."
Siegle, Robert. "Spalding Gray and the Colorful Quilt of Culture." In his Suburban Ambush: Downtown Writing and the Fiction of Insurgency, pp. 252-59. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
Examines the ways in which Gray's works "disrupt the traditional relationship between a passive audience and method actors preserving the illusion of reality on a raised stage."
THREE PLACES IN RHODE ISLAND
Aronson, Arnold. "Sakonnet Point." The Drama Review 19, No. 4 (December 1975): 27-35.
Examination of the structure, images, action, and other performance-related elements of Sakonnet Point.
Bierman, James. "Three Places in Rhode Island." The Drama Review 23, No. 1 (March 1979): 13-30.
Detailed analysis of the dramaturgy of Gray's trilogy.
SEX AND DEATH TO AGE 14
Brustein, Robert. Review of Sex and Death to Age 14. The New Republic 195, No. 1 (July 7, 1986): 36-7.
Favorable evaluation that claims "Gray creates an erotic history of early adolescence that does for New England Protestants what Lenny Bruce and Philip Roth did for New York and New Jersey Jews."
SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA
Canby, Vincent. "Soloists on the Big Screen." The New York Times (22 March 1987): II, 19.
Review of the movie version of Swimming to Cambodia that places it in the genre of "concert film."
Carr, Cindy. "Spalding Gray." American Film XII, No. 7 (May 1987): 62.
Profile of Gray and an appreciation of the film version of Swimming to Cambodia that declares it "an epic meditation on illusion and reality."
Dika, Vera. "Critical/Mass." Art in America 76, No. 1 (January 1988): 37-40.
Argues that the film version of Swimming to Cambodia is not "a mere recording of a previously staged event but a new work, one that actually extends and completes the original aspirations of the performance piece."
Maslin, Janet. Review of Swimming to Cambodia. The New York Times (13 March 1987): C 8.
Describes the film of Swimming to Cambodia as "a twoman undertaking, one that shows off both Mr. Gray's storytelling talents and [director] Jonathan Demme's ability to frame them."
Prinz, Jessica. "Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia: A Performance Gesture," in Staging the Impossible: The Fantastic Mode in Modern Drama, edited by Patrick D. Murphy, pp. 156-68. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992, pp. 156-68.
Argues that in its attempt to come to terms with the horrors that took place in Cambodia, Swimming to Cambodia represents "a reaction to or defense mechanism against the fantastic and seemingly impossible facts of history."
Rich, Frank. "To Play Oneself May Be the Greatest Illusion of All." The New York Times (29 June 1986): 3, 25.
Includes a review of Swimming to Cambodia, in which Rich observes: "What makes Spalding Gray so theatrical in his seemingly nontheatrical way is not only his talent as a storyteller and social observer but also his ability to deepen the mystery of the demarcation line between performer and role."
MONSTER IN A BOX
Leslie, Guy. Review of Monster in a Box. Theater Week 4, No. 16 (26 November 1990): 34.
Finds Gray's storytelling in Monster in a Box "highly entertaining" but observes that "some indication that storytelling cannot neatly tie a ribbon around all of life's experiences is called for."
Simon, John. Review of Monster in a Box. New York Magazine 23, No. 48 (10 December 1990): 109.
Very mixed assessment asserting that some of Monster in a Box "has a fey, off-the-wall charm, [but] some of it is just self-indulgent blather."
Additional coverage of Gray's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Gale Research: Contemporary Authors, Vol. 128; Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 49; Discovering Authors: Modules—Popular Fiction and Genre Authors Module.
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