Hilarious... riveting Boston Globe Gray s Anatomy Comedy/Drama by Spalding Gray Adapted by Kathleen Russo
Gray s Anatomy True theatrical magic. [An] utterly involving piece [A] beautifully shaped meditation on disease, aging and mortality that is more cogently of a piece and more emotionally moving than perhaps anything else Mr. Gray has done. And don t worry: it is also extremely funny. N.Y. Times Comedy/Drama. By Spalding Gray. Adapted by Kathleen Russo. Cast: 1 (may be expanded to 27). This is Gray s middle-age crisis monologue. His immediate problem is an eye condition that could be corrected by surgery, but Gray chooses to seek alternative methods before going under the knife. Coinciding with this problem is his long-time girlfriend s insistence that they get married after being together for 14 years. Gray can t seem to commit to surgery and/or marriage. Approximate running time: 90 minutes (optional intermission). Code: G84. Cover photo of Spalding Gray: Paula Court. Cover design: Jeanette Alig-Sergel ISBN-13 978-1-58342-574-9 ISBN-10 1-58342-574-8 02008 9 781583 425749 www.dramaticpublishing.com Dramatic Publishing 311 Washington St. Woodstock, IL 60098 ph: 800-448-7469 Printed on recycled paper
GRAY S ANAT OMY By SPALDING GRAY Adapted by KATHLEEN RUSSO Dra matic Pub lishing Woodstock, Il li nois Eng land Aus tra lia New Zea land
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GRAY S ANAT OMY This play was de signed for one per son to per form but the di rec tor has per mis sion to make this into mul ti ple roles if he/she so de sires. Stage set-up: a ta ble/wooden desk with a straight-back wooden chair. On the desk sits one glass (pint size) of wa - ter and a ta ble-top mi cro phone stand with a mi cro phone. This is the ba sic set ting that Spalding Gray used but each pro duc tion is not ob li gated to do it this way. The sip of wa ter is where Spalding de cided each break was es sen tial to the flow of the piece. Again, the di rec tor may use them any way he/she deems ap pro pri ate and nec - es sary.
GRAY S ANAT OMY SPALDING: I think it all be gan when I was do ing a sto ry tell ing work shop in up state New York. I had about fif teen peo ple I was work ing with. I asked them to sit in a cir cle as a kind of cen ter ing ex er cise be fore we be gan tell ing sto ries, and just look into each other s eyes. Not to speak but to just look into each other s eyes and when they got tired of look ing into one per son s eyes they could move on to some one else s. I was par tic i pat ing in this ex er cise, and I got locked into the eyes of this one par tic u lar woman. And I could n t get out. Her name was Azaria Thornbird. She was tall, blonde, blue eyes, about thirty-six years old, dressed in white, the Im mac u late Con cep tion. I was riv eted to her blue eyes. I could n t take my eyes off her eyes. I could n t move on to any one else. And as I looked into her eyes, her en tire face be gan to slide off her skull. It was pour ing down; it was drool ing off like in a hor ror movie, like a bad LSD trip; and then her face turned into an oval ball of puls ing white light. I d never seen any thing like it, ex cept on the cover of a Carlos Castaneda book. It was burn ing my ret i nas and di - lat ing my pu pils. I could n t take my eyes off it. But all of a sud den the ball of white light came into a point and went 7
8 GRAY S ANATOMY Pfffff! Whoom! and van ished out the win dow be hind her head, and her face recomposed and smiled back at me. My ra tio nal, log i cal mind kicked right in and said, Uh, that was just a case of backlighting, was n t it? Af ter the work shop, I went back home to work on my novel, Im pos si ble Va ca tion, and I was read ing a par tic u - larly pain ful sec tion over and over. I found that as I was look ing at the text the print on the manu script page was n t hold ing to gether. So I started fool ing around and test ing my eyes: I d cover my left eye, and the print was fine look - ing through my right eye. I d cover my right eye, and I saw that no mat ter where I held the text, I could never get it fo - cused with my left eye, which kind of fright ened me, be - cause if it had to do with glasses, at some point I should be able to get it in fo cus. But I did n t rush off to an op tom e trist, be cause I wanted to fin ish my book first, and I thought I never would fin ish if I did that. I was a lit tle fright ened, re ally. I had n t had my eyes ex am ined in a long time, and I was fan ta siz ing about all sorts of things you know, CMV, retinitis, or a brain tu mor. And I was se cretly get ting out Renée s Mayo fam ily clinic dis ease book, which is this huge blue book the size of Web ster s un abridged dic tio nary. She gave it to me for Christ mas, but I can t look at the damn thing. The color pho to graphs are un be liev able: pe nis can cer, gal lop ing mel a noma I could n t even look at the sec tion on eyes. It was a good four months be fore I got the cour age to go to an op tom e trist. I got a rec om men da tion for a Dr. Schecter on the Up per East Side. So I went I did n t tell
him any thing and he be gins the stan dard ex am i na tion, by shin ing a light into my right eye, then over to my left, then back into my right, and over to my left again, and then start ing with the right, and then back to the left very quickly. Then he starts con cen trat ing on my left eye; left, left, left, left. He gets out an other in stru ment and be gins to peer into my left eye even more in tensely It was like a scene from Gen eral Hos pi tal ; the only thing miss ing was the dra matic mu sic. He per forms a very care ful ex am i na tion of my left eye, and fi nally he pulls back, puts all his in stru ments down, and says I think you have a prob lem with the ret ina of your left eye. But I can t tell you what it is, be cause I m not an oph - thal mol o gist. I d like to rec om mend that you go to one. I think you should go to him this af ter noon. I rush out of there in a panic. GRAY S ANAT OMY 9 He rec om mends Dr. Men del on the Up per West Side. So that means I have to run across the park from the Up per East Side to the Up per West Side, and I was run ning, be - lieve me, I was run ning to get to Dr. Men del s of fice. But I was also cov er ing my right eye with my hand and look ing through my left eye, think ing, My God, things are not good! I did not no tice this much dis tor tion be fore. The trees are all wavy; there are no straight lines in this park. I get over to Dr. Men del s of fice, and I go into Dr. Men - del s wait ing room. The first thing they do is put drops in my eyes. I did n t know what they were for; I d never had this done be fore. They did it to di late my pu pils, but they
10 GRAY S ANATOMY did n t tell me that. I was just sit ting there try ing to catch up on my read ing, which I of ten do in doc tors of fices. It s my one chance to catch up on Peo ple, Newsweek and Time. What else is there to do in a doc tor s of fice? I mean, you don t look at the art. So I m sit ting there read ing and I did not know that they had di lated my pu pils, and so grad u ally I m go ing blind in the wait ing room of that of fice. The whole place is turn ing into a fuzzball, just a big yel low fuzzball. It s hor ri ble. There s noth ing to do but sit and wait. That s what I was do ing; I was wait ing in the wait ing room. I hated it. Finally, the nurse brought me into the doc tor s of fice. Dr. Men del in tro duced him self; he put me into the ex am i na tion chair, got out a huge sy ringe, and told me that he was go ing to shoot me up with col ored dye. Well, I thought, why not, he s the doc tor. I had to get him to ex plain ev ery thing to me. Why the dye? Well, it turns out that he wanted to take some pho to - graphs of my eye, and in or der to pho to graph the ves sels you have to have some dye in them. He shoots me up. My ves sels get filled with col ored dye very quickly. He and the nurse tilt me for ward and put my chin on a kind of brace. I m look ing through these two holes, into what I did n t know at the time was the cam era, and they be gin to take pho tos, and the cam era turns out to be a flash cam era, and these flash bulbs are go ing off right in my eyes. It s like a tor ture. I feel like I m be ing blinded and I try to pull my head back but the nurse keeps push ing my head for ward Flash flash flash! It s like a Clock work
GRAY S ANAT OMY 11 Or ange sit u a tion. It s re ally like a tor ture. I come out reel - ing; all I can see is spots. They fin ish, and the doc tor rushes off, his gown blow ing in the non ex is tent breeze. He does n t say a word. He s madly tak ing notes on a lit tle pad as he goes off to de velop the pic tures. By now the nurse has stopped push ing my head and in stead is hold ing my hand and talk ing about some va ca tion she wants to take in the Ba ha mas. And I am sit ting there wait ing. Di lated and wait ing. Finally the doc tor co mes back, but he does not come over to me. In stead he goes over to the tele phone and calls Dr. Schecter, my op tom e trist, who s not in but has an an - swer ing ma chine. So Dr. Men del be gins dic tat ing this mes - sage into Dr. Schecter s an swer ing ma chine. He be gins by say ing: Hello, Dr. Schecter, this is Dr. Men del call ing. First of all, I want to thank you for send ing over your pa - tient Gary Spalding. Then he pro ceeds to dic tate from the pad: Close in spec - tion of the left macula shows that there is a dis tor tion of the in te rior lim it ing mem brane sec ond ary to the pos te rior hyaloid face con trac tion. But the pos te rior hyaloid, which was at tached to the op tic-nerve macula, and ma jor ves sels of the ret ina, have re mained at tached and in tact. I say, Dr. Men del, over here please (wave hand), could you please tell me what is wrong with my left eye. Please over here! He turns his back on me and con tin ues dic tat ing.
12 GRAY S ANATOMY With dis so lu tion of the cen tral vit re ous gel, the en ve - lope that the vit re ous gel is in be gins to shrink and dis tort the sur face of the ret ina. A fluorozine angiogram has been done to the eye to de ter mine the amount of vas cu lar dis tor - tion. I was sur prised to see that he has some min i mal cys - toids macula edema in that left eye on the ba sis of the cap - il lary in com pe tence from that dis tor tion thank you! I said, Dr. Men del, what is wrong with my left eye? PLEASE! He said, Ba sically, Gary, you have a macula pucker. (Ahh you laugh. All of my friends laughed when I told them that. They said, Yeah, I knew a girl in high school named Macula Pucker, and she had syph i lis. ) I said, What is a macula pucker? Ba sically, Gary, what s hap pened is the vit re ous hu mor or the jelly in your eye has bro ken down, dis solved, liq ue - fied, due to a trauma or age we don t know what yet and it s pulled away from the ret ina and left a lit tle piece of skin or edema on the macula the macula be ing the cen - ter of the ret ina, which is re spon si ble for all de tail in sight. Now this does n t hap pen to ev ery one, but in your case what s hap pened is this. You have to imag ine that your macula is kind of like a piece of Sa ran Wrap, and it s ag i - tated and puck er ing up. It s puck er ing; it s a pucker. That s what it is; you have a pucker. Uhh I see. I mean, how could this have hap pened? I don t want this to hap pen to my right eye! What could possibly be the cause?
GRAY S ANAT OMY 13 Well, did you have any blows, any trau mas to your left eye re cently? No, I don t think so. The last thing I can think of was in 1976 I was at a New Year s Eve party and I was danc - ing with a woman who did not have a very good sense of her own per sonal space, if you know what I mean? Her lit - tle pinky flew into my left eye and the fin ger nail of her pinky scratched my cor nea. It was very pain ful; it was run - ning. I had a patch. You know, it was wa ter ing. It was aw - ful. He just looks at me and he says, You have a very good mem ory, don t you, Gary? So I said, What are we go ing to do? How can this be helped? He said, I rec om mend a lit tle macula scrap ing. Now as soon as I heard that word scrap ing I knew that I wanted a sec ond, third and fourth opin ion. He said, Don t bother, re ally, I m the best one around. I m the only one who can do it. Up un til now, I did not re ally like this man. Now I re - ally, re ally did not like him, and I had to get out of that of - fice. I went and told Renée what was go ing on, and she im - me di ately wanted to find the best macula scraper in the United States. Renée is great at that. When it co mes to re search on any thing, she s great. I m better at re flect ing end lessly on what the causes might be. This is what I m ob sessed
14 GRAY S ANATOMY with not look ing for an other doc tor. So, while Renée was look ing for a doc tor, I was keep ing a jour nal an a lyz ing what might have caused this strange eye con di tion. (Sip of wa ter.) First of all, I thought it might be the book the book that I was writ ing, Im pos si ble Va ca tion. It was sim ply too pain ful. It was about my mother s sui cide, and I felt I re - ally had never prop erly grieved for her, or mourned her, and what hap pened was, my eye my left eye just cried, in a big way. It just ex ploded into one big tear from read ing that pain ful sec tion of the book over and over again. The en tire vit re ous hu mor just wept. And then I be gan to think, no, it was be cause the book was writ ten in the first per son. It was too much, I, I, I, I, I, I I I I I I I I I! Then I thought it was my right brain re bel ling against my left brain. Or my left brain re bel ling against my right. When ever I asked any New Age friends, par tic u larly on the West Coast, what they thought caused it, they would say, Well, what is it you don t want to see? I had lists! I was sure it had to do with my Oedipus com plex, be cause my novel was es sen tially about that. And I was read ing Freud s es say on ne ga tion at the time. Not that I d ever been aware of want ing to sleep with my mother, but Freud says that the de nial of some state of af - fairs is an im plicit ac knowl edg ment of it. So if a guy says that he never wanted to sleep with his mother, he s as good as ad mit ting that he gave it some
GRAY S ANAT OMY 15 solid con sid er ation. So I m think ing, the un con scious part of me, the part that did give it some con sid er ation, is reach - ing up and scratch ing out one eye at a time, start ing with the left eye, which is the fem i nine eye, in pun ish ment for this for not sleep ing with my mother. Mean while, while I m do ing all this im por tant spec u la - tion on the cause of this, Renée has found this won der ful Chi nese doc tor who she thinks is the right man. Highly rec - om mended. I go meet him and I think, if any one s go ing to do it, he s the guy. He s got a won der ful bed side man ner. He s got a smile like Bud dha. He s not like most eye doc - tors, who are au tom a tons. He has great style, and, also, I like his use of lan guage. He says, What has to be done is a lit tle macula peel ing. And I like that a whole lot better than Dr. Men del s macula scrap ing. He also says, Don t worry about what the causes are, be cause your con di tion is id io pathic. Mean ing, no known cause. I also like him better than Dr. Men del be cause he was not in a rush to op er ate; first he wants to tell me about the op er a tion. It s mi cro sur gery, he says. It s about ten years old, it costs ten thou sand dol lars, and there s no guar - an tee that it s go ing to work com pletely, but it might be help ful in bet ter ing your sight. We ll cut into the white of your eye in two places in or der to in sert the peeler and a small pump. Then we ll put a mi cro scope through the iris of the eye. Then we ll just go in and peel that pucker. He wants to tell me what the risks of the op er a tion are, of course. He tells me that there is a one to two per cent chance of in fec tion, which would mean pros the sis. One to
16 GRAY S ANATOMY two per cent chance of a tear, which would mean be ing im - me di ately blind in the left eye. There is a thirty-five per - cent chance of a cat a ract due to the trauma from the op er a - tion. And then there is a one per cent chance of the whole con di tion just clear ing up on its own. Which I m bank ing on. But he s not in a rush to op er ate. He tells me that I have to check in with him ev ery so of ten to see if the con di tion de te ri o rates any fur ther, and if so then we should move on it. But right now we can let it ride and see if it does cor rect it self on its own. I like this. I said, Does that mean that I have time now, that I can do al ter na tive ther a pies, you know, like diet, acu - punc ture, or prayer or all three? Oh yes, you can do al ter na tives, he says, with a sweet Bud dha smile. You can try them all And then we ll have to op er ate. So I go back and tell Renée what the doc tor s told me, and she says, Spald, do you know what pros the sis means? I said, You know, I al ways thought I did, un til this mo - ment. It s one of those fuzzy words. It s noth ing to do with the pros tate gland Oh, does n t it mean, like, false arm or false leg? And she said, Try eye, Spald. Try glass eye. (Sip of wa ter.)