Obviously, something more than the early mutiny was bothering him. Those of us who remained were on his side. Either we wondered the same things that he had about the war, or we didn’t object to such discussions in the theater, or both. But we were all past that now. We were ready to play Interviewing the Audience, but the interviewer wouldn’t, or couldn’t. Some of his onstage visitors, baffled by his inability to conduct the interview, took over. And there was only one subject anyone was interested in. It came shouted from the crowd:
“What’s wrong, Spalding?!”
He answered, some. He talked a bit about the car accident in Ireland in the fall of 2001, which recently has been detailed in accounts of his disappearance, and more recently, in his obituaries. That accident, we have come to learn, fractured his skull, crushed his hip, paralyzed his foot, and perhaps damaged his brain. Attempts at rehabilitation had been catastrophic. That night onstage, however, he only talked about the foot. He hobbled around to demonstrate.
“I can’t dance anymore,” he explained weakly.
What?
“I can’t dance anymore. With my kids. I can’t dance
with my kids.”
We understand, but . . .
“I can’t dance anymore.”
He said it over and over. For the rest of the night.
Why was the accident so horrible? Why are you so depressed tonight? Why can’t you snap out of it? What’s wrong, Spalding?
“I can’t dance anymore.”
He spoke a little about his family having recently moved from a house he loved in Sag Harbor to one he didn’t in North Haven. He blamed his wife for talking him into this. He made cryptic allusions to the Furies. Mentioned three women in his life who tormented him as the Furies had Orestes, though he never named his Furies. He asked his onstage visitors if they believed in ghosts, in Furies. He didn’t seem to hear their responses.
These were his only themes — the accident, he can’t dance anymore, why did they sell his house, the relentless Furies.
And it all led nowhere. Backwards, in fact. We were exploring neither him nor those he was supposed to be interviewing. He was lost and alone up there.
Spalding Gray had always been alone up there. That’s what Spalding Gray did. But he always had us, too. He was alone, often terribly alone, but we were with him alone. It worked beautifully for 25 years. Eighteen monologues.
This night there was no us. Just him alone.
The friendly audience that was left was slowly abandoning him, and he didn’t seem to care, or notice. The crowd was ever more unruly, like grade-schoolers taking advantage of the sub. People were again walking out, but now because they felt cheated. One of his visitors explained that she was a mother with young children, and on this her first night out in two months, she had come to see him. She wanted a show, she wanted theater. Who could blame her?
He only nodded.
Another woman, much older, whose intelligence and humor gave us respite from the unfolding tragedy, asked him if he’d had anything to drink. He answered, truthfully I think, that he never drinks before a show.
Then he talked about the accident again, and how he can’t dance anymore.
Then he was silent some more. For a long time. Again.
Several among the audience shouted that they wanted their money back.
Most of the seats were empty now.
From my place in the balcony, the theater looked enormous. It seemed to get bigger each minute. Each excruciating minute. He was receding. Spalding Gray had become a tiny man down there, dying alone on his stage.
I don’t recall the show ending exactly. Except that he bowed to us, as was his custom. This night, it was an absurd gesture.
Then he was gone.
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