Spalding Gray as Storyteller
[In the following review of the premiere production of Swimming to Cambodia at the Performing Garage in New York, Gussow characterizes the play "a virtuosic evening of autobiographical storytelling. "]
Were it not for the absolute simplicity of the presentation, one might be tempted to say that Spalding Gray has invented a performance art form. Sitting at a card table and talking to the audience, he offers a virtuosic evening of autobiographic storytelling. With the perspicacity of a master travel writer, he acts as reporter, comic and playwright of his own life.
His latest and best work is called Swimming to Cambodia, presented in two parts, in repertory, at the Performing Garage. The double-barreled dose of Spalding Gray was inspired by his experiences as an actor in the movie The Killing Fields. The film is a screen adaptation of a magazine article by Sydney H. Schanberg, the New York Times correspondent, concerning his friendship with his assistant Dith Pran while covering the war in Cambodia. Mr. Gray played the small role of an assistant to the American ambassador, and from that vantage point was able to see the movie, whole, and—using his own reading and research—also to comprehend the military and political complexity of our Cambodian involvement.
On the one hand, Swimming to Cambodia is an informative supplement to the heat and fire of The Killing Fields. On the other hand, it is a close-up, on-location analysis of the monumental absurdities of movie-making, of people and places in Thailand (where the movie was shot) and of the interpersonal relationships of men and women in film combat. One of Mr. Gray's several provocative theories is his concept of "war therapy." He suggests that every country should work out its militaristic aggressions by making "a major war film once a year." He also believes in "displacement of anxiety"—a small worry substituting for a great pain.
Mr. Gray's stream of experience has the zestful, firsthand quality of a letter home from the front. One could enjoy his narrative in print, but it gains enormously from the fact that he is recounting it in person, acting it out and commenting—with a quizzical look as he tells us about a particularly grotesque Asian sexual practice. In performance, Mr. Gray is a one-man theatrical equivalent of the movie, My Dinner with Andre.
Most of his previous monologues have been drawn directly from his personal life. With Swimming to Cambodia, he expands his world view. He observes a panoply of others as well as himself, bringing back pithy commentary on his producer, his director (a combination of "Zorro, Jesus and Rasputin"), his fellow actors (Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich) and the lesser known people on the project, who walk around, at least in Mr. Gray's mind's-eye, wearing T-shirts that say, "Skip the dialogue, let's blow something up."
He weaves his observations with aspects of his inner life—as an insecure actor with a "very confrontational" girlfriend and as a man who has two desperate, equally important wishes. He wants to get an agent and to experience a perfect moment. In the second part of his monologue, Mr. Gray embraces the mystical; he is a Holden Caulfield seeking nirvana on a Thai beach, while never losing his self-mocking sense of humor or his gift for telling a shaggy story.
Some of the reportage is so bizarre, it must be fantasy—or is it? In any case, acting in a war movie was clearly a mind-expanding time for this impressionable actor. Completing his brief role in The Killing Fields, Mr. Gray remains land-locked on location—in contrast to his colleagues who fly home at the first opportunity. He feels like a poor relation who has stayed too long as a house guest, but he cannot help himself. He is obsessed by the filming, and he transmits his fascination to the audience.
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