Process XLIV

Spalding Gray

This week in workshop the class read the second act of my new script to its conclusion. I was worried it was a bit too talky, but at least there was genuine laughter. What I’d really like to do is get enough readers together to hear it properly. There are six characters, but only five students in the class, and I want to listen, not read.

This weekend I am in Athens, visiting our child. So maybe we'll have that read next week, or anyway, soon. The semester will conclude in a month and I would like to do some significant revision.

And speaking of revision! A workshop of another play (sorry to be coy) is to be pushed back two months, from January to March. That’s cool, why not make it an even two years?

In dramatic structure we watched Spalding Gray: Terrors of Pleasure, and I was shocked to discover I had already seen the entire thing, probably when it premiered on cable in 1988. The moment which stuck with me the longest was when the camera zooms on his face as he has this one most significant revelation:

“Wait … am I a loser?”

I have used that a million times, but forgot where it was from.

But I was disappointed. Even back then I was disappointed. Swimming To Cambodia made such an indelible impression, it was a theatrical event. It was a film, yes, of a theatrical event, with higher highs and even lower lows, which garnered him some kind of deal with HBO to make new, hour long, monologue films.

Unfortunately, Terrors is merely schmuck humor. He tells the story of buying a house which is a money pit but before it reaches any kind of climax it diverts to a Hollywood failure tale and then just kind of ends.

Every monologue play I have written, I have been obsessed with its structure. I should write another one, but God knows what that would be about.