Storyteller Spalding Gray killed himself in 2004 by jumping off the Staten Island ferry. Best known for the monologue and movie "Swimming to Cambodia," this documentary focuses on the period of Gray's life after a life-threatening car accident. Using audio from his one-man performances and several personal interviews, New York City producer Jon Kalish presents a portrait of Gray's personal struggles and work, which many people believed were the same. "He questions everything and ends up more exhausted than satisfied," wrote Michael Kuchwara, the Associated Press drama critic. To do that, Gray dwelled on yesterday's troubles. "One of the hells that I suffer is that I live in the past a lot of the time," he says at one point in the documentary. The strongest moment of this piece is Kalish's conversation with Gray near the end of his life. The actor sounds unhinged as the pair stroll around the grounds of a college campus. The only downside to this doc are the time references (there's a reference to January, which might make the listener believe Gray died recently, not in 2004) and a mid-documentary reference to the radio station on which the piece originally aired.

My only qualm with this piece is that the information presented in the very first sentences is innaccurate. The announcer tells us that Gray's body was found in January and that he apparently jumped from the ferry serveral months earlier. In fact, Gray disappeared in January and was found in March.

That said, I think the piece ended beautifully, poignantly; so painful to hear.

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]