For close to two decades, Spalding Gray's wry and unflinchingly honest monologues have chronicled the ups and downs of his famously rootless life.
Gray returns to Edison Theatre this fall for a pair of new shows, including a world premiere Oct. 2 of "Gray on Gray: A Lifelong Conversation" with his brother, Rockwell Gray, Ph.D., a lecturer in the Department of English in Arts and Sciences. On Oct. 3, Spalding Gray will present the St. Louis premiere of his newest work in progress, "Morning, Noon & Night," which describes a single day in the life of the author's young family.
Both performances, part of Edison Theatre's OVATIONS! Series, begin at 8 p.m.
In "Gray on Gray: A Lifelong Conversation," Spalding and Rockwell explore a lifetime of shared history, trading riffs and stories in a kind of fraternal point-counterpoint. "In this performance, we meet to distill the circling, exploring talk we've made together for over half a century," Rockwell said.
Evy Warshawski, director of Edison Theatre, noted that this will be Spalding Gray's fifth visit to the University in nine years. "Spalding has developed quite a following in St. Louis," she said. "He considers us one of his second homes -- after all, he has family here -- and we're fortunate to have that kind of continuity."
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Gray's previous visits have included performances of "Interviewing the Audience"; "Gray's Anatomy"; "Monster in a Box"; and, most recently, "It's a Slippery Slope," which chronicled the author's break-up with longtime collaborator Renee Shafransky and his subsequent relationship with Kathie Russo.
"Morning, Noon & Night" finds the author enjoying a newfound stability with Kathie, their two young sons, Forrest and Theo, and Kathie's 11-year-old daughter, Marissa. Set over the course of a single day, the work is grounded in a sense of the way children change not only one's external life but the internal life as well, touching on everything from spilled cereal to the family's move from hectic Manhattan to the quiet of New York's Sag Harbor. Like James Joyce in "Ulysses" or Thornton Wilder in "Our Town," Gray seeks to uncover "the macrocosm within the microcosm."
Gray's earlier monologues include "Sex and Death at Age 14"; "Booze, Cars and College Girls"; and the OBIE Award-winning "Swimming to Cambodia," which was adapted as a film by Jonathan Demme. Other film credits include an adaptation of "Gray's Anatomy" directed by Steven Soderbergh and roles in Roland Joffe's "The Killing Fields," David Byrne's "True Stories," Soderbergh's "King of the Hill" and Ron Howard's "The Paper."
Gray has appeared in shows both on and off Broadway, including the revival of "Our Town" and the New York premiere of Sam Shepard's "Tooth of Crime." His eight books include several monologue adaptations and the novel "Impossible Vacation." Gray has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Rockefeller Foundation.
Rockwell Gray earned a doctorate in social thought from the University of Chicago. His books include "A Century of Enterprise: St. Louis 1894-1994"; "The Imperative of Modernity: An Intellectual Biography of Jose Ortega y Gasset"; and "Folktales of Chile." His book reviews appear regularly in the Chicago Tribune, and he also has written for St. Louis Magazine, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and The Missouri Historical Society, among others. He currently teaches creative non- fiction at both Webster University and Washington University.
Tickets are $23 and are available at the Edison Theatre Box Office, 935-6543, or through MetroTix, 534-1111. Call for discounts. For more information, call 935-6543.
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