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Lone
Wolf
Howl:
THE
MAN
BEHIND
THE
TABLE
(Originally
published
in
Calgary
Country: May 2004)
It was fifteen years ago this month that I first heard the story of the man behind the table. I had just completed my initial year of training at the UofA, was trying to get my first acting job, and failing miserably at it. One kind director pulled me aside and tried to explain to me that a good performance was more than just eager energy and a willingness to please. A good performance, he said (and therefore a good audition) must be enchanting, seductive, and mysterious. A sense of humour helps. If I understood what he was talking about, I definitely had no idea how to achieve it for myself. But I needed to find out. The theatre season was pretty much done in Edmonton by then, so I rented a swack of movies including "Swimming to Cambodia". It starts with a man in a plaid shirt and brown corduroy pants walking down a street in New York, opening the back door of a warehouse, and sitting behind a table (a table adorned with the most spartan of props: a microphone, a notebook, and a glass of water). He takes a sip of water and begins to speak his piece. What transpired in the next 85 minutes had a profound effect on the gollum of a performer inside of me… an effect that continues to manifest itself in every aspect of the still-forming artist to this day. Spalding Gray, like me, began as an actor. The pavement in New York is much harder than it is here and he pounded it daily. A few films, a few stage roles, a few experiments (actors are a lot like farmers in that sense: they must diversify in order to survive). Diversify he did. Gray attempted something so revolutionary and so bloody simple that it captivated an audience of viewers, critics, and wannabe actors: he talked. Part confessional, part soapbox, but all story. He was the unorthodox minister that dared to marry the sibling art forms of theatre and storytelling. His monologues were a forum for him to battle with an array of demons. We watched this most articulate of gladiators engage in battle, armed to the teeth with wit, insight, and spellbinding magic (either on video or, if one was lucky enough, live in the NYC coliseum known as the Performance Garage). "Swimming" takes as its diving board his minor role in the Roland Joffé film "The Killing Fields". Gray the actor talks about an acting project. "Monster in a Box", his next monologue film, refers to a novel he's working on (the manuscript, monstrous in size, sits in a box on the table beside the glass of water). Gray the writer talks about a writing project. His third film, "Gray's Anatomy", finds the modern day Mark Twain talking about his quest to find a cure to his rare eye disease. Gray the obsessive… Because demons don't differentiate between art and life, and because they attack at will, Spalding Gray was constantly battling them. He spun a few of those battles into art par excellence, but victory in art is rarely a victory in life. He disappeared in January of this year, last seen on the Staten Island Ferry, and his body was recovered in the East River on the 7th of March. Enchanting? Seductive? Mysterious? The man behind the table was all of these things. And as funny as they come. Back to Resources Page |