Spalding Gray Still Has ‘Stories Left to Tell’ at Theatre Gigante

by

Devotees of Spalding Gray found universal meaning in his intensely personal monologues and Milwaukee has become an unexpected hub of activity surrounding this verbal athlete of public introspection. Gray performed only once in Milwaukee, but Theatre Gigante has already done Gray three times, including 2011’s week-long “Spalderama” featuring talkbacks and a screening of Steven Soderbergh’s film on the monologuist.

Gigante is at it again, closing their 35th season with Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell. After his 2004 suicide, Stories Left to Tell was composed by his former wife Kathie Russo and stage director Lucy Sexton from his private journals as well as his public monologues. The Stories are organized by five categories, each performed by a different monologuist: Love, Family, Adventure, Career, Journal. Stories Left to Tell relates Gray’s life while allowing the actors—and the audience—to reflect on their own.

Co-Artistic Director Mark Anderson knew Gray years before joining Gigante, meeting him after a performance in 1984. “I hung out with him as much as I could,” said Anderson, who traveled to see him perform in New York and Chicago. “Along the way he saw some of my work—which was terrifying!” Gray compared the play Anderson wrote for Milwaukee’s Theatre X to “Beckett and Chekhov rolled into one.” They stayed in touch. “He’d leave messages on my answering machine—15-20 minute monologues on the phone.”

Gray continued working after suffering serious injuries in a 2002 car accident. For an artist who staked the claim of sharing his life in public, he proved to be an old fashioned, on with the show trouper—for a while. Gigante’s Co-Artistic Director Isabelle Kralj recalls seeing him backstage at a post-accident Ravinia performance. “He was on crutches and looked miserable and disheveled, but he came out on stage as if nothing was wrong.”

email newsletter iconStay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.

SIGN UP

According to Anderson, Russo’s intention behind Stories Left to Tell was “to keep his work alive and to explain to his fans why he made the decision” to commit suicide. For their performance of Stories, Anderson and Kralj chose familiar faces: David Flores, Shawn Smith and Jane Kaczmarek as well as casting themselves. Anderson explains that Russo did not want Gray impersonators on stage but five actors “who could deliver these stories as though they were theirs—a tricky performance” for work by an artist who walked a fine line with self-indulgence.

For Kralj, “That someone could divulge so much of their own personal life was impressive. What I liked most was that it was non-judgmental. He looked at his life as if a film was running in front of him. He had the technique to deliver it theatrically. He’d talk for an hour and a half and not lose you for one minute.” What bothered him most after his accident, she adds, was “he was losing his timing. He used to fluctuate within a monologue like a symphony.

Gigante will replicate the trademark simplicity of his staging, a table and a glass of water (he would take a sip and pause to gauge his audience), adding a bit of video and a few backdrops.

Surprisingly, given the fame Spalding enjoyed from ‘80s through the early ‘00s, Stories Left to Tell has seldom been performed outside of New York—and Milwaukee’s Theatre Gigante.

Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell will be performed May 5-7 at Kenilworth 508 Theater, 1925 E. Kenilworth Place. For tickets, visit gigantespalding.eventbrite.com.