In "A Tribute to Spalding Gray", Jon Kalish invites listeners into the Gray Club with a triple decker of personal interviews (where Kalish is conversationally present) seminar presentations, and Gray's trademark monologs.
The radio is very, very good to Spalding Gray, whose live performance scenery depends upon only his plaid shirt, plain table and chair, and glass of water. Little is lost when his monologs are brought from the theatre or cinema to the ether, and spoken word is superior to the print versions of his work.
Spalding Gray has a high quotient of fans among public radio listeners, perhaps because his startling honesty is met in kind by the directness of the medium. That honesty has a harder edge in this later material, where Cambodian joints are replaced by Irish fractures.
Next thing I knew I was lying in the street completely covered in blood, Kathy writhing next to me crying, "I'm dying I'm dying." And I said, "But I can't straighten my leg." [And] there was cow medicine everywhere -- it was a local veterinarian [who crashed into us.]"
Selling his house for money reminds Gray of his father, and what subsequently happened to his mother. "That's what led to her madness. So it's not my story I hope."
But it is. This tribute captures not only the brilliance and spark but also the descending trajectory of Gray's shooting star.
Kalish ends with a personal goodbye, which fits the acolytic style of the piece, really a remembrance in Gray's own voice, just as his performances really comprised a series of his lives, remembered.
[Production note: 15:05 -15:18 = Station ID to KCRW, which must be stripped for rebroadcast, which we hope for, broadly. -gb]
Review of A Tribute to Spalding Gray
Geo Beach
Posted on December 31, 2004 at 05:36 PM
In "A Tribute to Spalding Gray", Jon Kalish invites listeners into the Gray Club with a triple decker of personal interviews (where Kalish is conversationally present) seminar presentations, and Gray's trademark monologs.
The radio is very, very good to Spalding Gray, whose live performance scenery depends upon only his plaid shirt, plain table and chair, and glass of water. Little is lost when his monologs are brought from the theatre or cinema to the ether, and spoken word is superior to the print versions of his work.
Spalding Gray has a high quotient of fans among public radio listeners, perhaps because his startling honesty is met in kind by the directness of the medium. That honesty has a harder edge in this later material, where Cambodian joints are replaced by Irish fractures.
Next thing I knew I was lying in the street completely covered in blood, Kathy writhing next to me crying, "I'm dying I'm dying." And I said, "But I can't straighten my leg." [And] there was cow medicine everywhere -- it was a local veterinarian [who crashed into us.]"
Selling his house for money reminds Gray of his father, and what subsequently happened to his mother. "That's what led to her madness. So it's not my story I hope."
But it is. This tribute captures not only the brilliance and spark but also the descending trajectory of Gray's shooting star.
Kalish ends with a personal goodbye, which fits the acolytic style of the piece, really a remembrance in Gray's own voice, just as his performances really comprised a series of his lives, remembered.
[Production note: 15:05 -15:18 = Station ID to KCRW, which must be stripped for rebroadcast, which we hope for, broadly. -gb]