Spalding Gray

In one of our most recent lessons we looked at Spalding Gray and his award winning solo piece, Swimming to Cambodia. This particular piece has to be my personal favourite  out of all the other performances I have seen. The general concept to this particular piece is Spalding Gray sitting at a table telling his story of being in Cambodia for a film, meanwhile the whole time on his own personal mission to see for the ‘perfect moment’. The whole story is based upon true events with some elements over exaggerated for comedic purposes. Although some are over the top he mentions this at the start so we know making the rest of the anecdote honest. This kind of performance is exactly how I wanted to mould mine around. a personal story close to home. He also makes great use of props, he has a map on the wall he constantly refers too, to help embed the truth of the story in our minds. Gray also makes great use out of media, some points he will show brief videos and others he will have the images playing over his face whilst still telling his story. This is certainly one element I will keep in mind when developing my performance.