Centerstage - Chicago's Original City Guide

Spalding Gray, 52 years old, with collar-length gray hair, wearing a plaid flannel shirt, dark denim pants, and hiking boots, steps briskly out onto the forestage, takes a quick bow, strides over to the large library table, sits down in the chair, opens his notebook, takes a sip of water from the glass, leans over to the microphone, and addresses the audience.

He never gets out of the chair, he never crawls under the table, he never tears up his notebook. He never cries nor sings, nor does he ever resort to any form of violence. And yet for ninety minutes the audience attends him, enraptured, drinking in every word, as he transforms the Goodman mainstage auditorium into a small, intimate space. His mind becomes a movie projector, and through his eyes he projects movies of his life directly into our souls, until we forget we're listening to spoken words at all, and only see Gray's memories. Even as we laugh out loud at the recognition of our own neuroses and weaknesses in his vivid and lively anecdotes, we feel a catch in our throat at the simple beauty of the underlying truth which is revealed: his depiction of his first afternoon alone with his infant son; his fantasies of duplicating his mother's suicide at 52; hearing his eighty-one-year-old father swear for the first time.

The title refers to Gray's quest to master downhill skiing, and certainly anyone who has ever skied might get something extra from this monologue, but non-skiers will certainly be entertained, delighted, and touched as well. As with all of Gray's monologues, the stories go beyond entertainment and enter into the realm of enlightenment. I heartily recommend spending an unforgettable evening with Spalding Gray.

-- Richard Henzel, reviewed 9/4/96