David Boreanaz in "Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell", Makd.livejournal.com Review

From Makd.livejournal.com -

David Boreanaz in "Spalding Gray: Stories Left To Tell", Makd.livejournal.com Review

We had a great day for our meeting: cloudy becoming sunnier at the day lengthened. We had a neat brunch at the Hudson Street Cafe, and then adjourned to herself_nyc’s apartment in The Village, where we met Miss Traddles and had about forty-five minutes of neat, fandom-related conversation, then....

We went to see The Play, and we saw Our Darling BoyMan. (Warning: ’Net links and images Aplenty!)

Spalding Gray was an actor who was best known for his monologues, not his "acting". He was an intense diarist, who, like Nin and Pepys, put some of the best of himself into his diaries. As LJers, we share commonalities with Gray; after all, like him, we are prone to write some of our best musings and re-write some of our more interesting, if not occasional tragedies, to be shared by others. Gray was a wry, sensitive man who enjoyed sharing the adventure that was his life.

Taking his writings from pre-puberty through his last posting (before his suicide), five characters read Gray as Love, Adventure, Family, Journalist, and Career. Sometimes sad, sometimes funny, sometimes ribald, sometimes sensitive, sometimes shallow, frequently profound, the diaries of Spaulding Gray are a sometimes mesmerizing reflection of the society in which he lived.

The Minetta Lane Theatre is a tiny theatre near Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village. It’s comfy, and although the stage is small, it’s certainly the right size for small productions. (http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/minetta.htm) The set was minimal: stacks of marble composition books, a table with a mike, some chairs. The backdrop was a curtain showered with sheets of hand-written paper(or looking like sheets of hand-written paper).

Kathleen Chalfant, who’s long been a favorite actor in this household, played Love. Featured on stage in The Vagina Monologues, Wit, Angels in America, and M Butterfly, on TV in The Guardian and Law & Order, and in the movie, Kinsey, Chalfant shines (literally: she and Hazelle wore sparkles in their hair and on their skin.) Hazelle Goodman, who played Adventure, performed several of the funniest monologues - most specifically of Gray’s adventure playing an Angel. Goodman’s been featured in Homicide: Life on the Streets, and in Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry. John Grady, who played Journals, seemed somehow familiar to me, as well - then I read the Playbill’s insert and realized that I’d probably seen Grady in at least one of the many performance of Blue Man Group I’d seen, as well as episodes of Sex and the City. Frank Wood, who played Family, had the opportunity to shine as the various members of Gray’s family and the best damned foghorn I’ve ever heard.

David Boreanaz was very, very, good as Careers. He was funny, wry, ironic, relating Gray’s (mis)adventures with Johnny Carson’s talent scout, a talent agent, a board of talent agents, and his (mis)meeting with Richard M. Nixon. DB, by the way, does a most excellent impression of Richard Nixon. Certainly, it’s the best I’ve heard, and dudes: I LIVED through those years as an adult, so I thought I’d heard all of the best RMN’s - but no: I hadn’t heard The Boreanaz’.

The entire performance, from beginning to end, was a delight. We did laugh, we did sniffle a bit, we did enjoy ourselves. a lot.

After the performance, we stopped at the Minetta Green Park (a pocket-sized part at the 7th Avenue side of Minetta Lane)(Here: http://www.pbase.com/hjsteed/minetta_triangle), then herself_nyc left us to go about errands, fierydemise took the D train uptown, and a2zmom, anamcara420 and I headed uptown. The three of us walked uptown (about a mile or so) to Penn Station. We stopped for a drink at a Starbuck’s, and made the trip, talking and laughing, sometimes agreeing, sometimes not, then said our adieus at the lower level of Penn Station (where the NJTransit meets the LIRR). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(New_York_City))

Home again, home again (lickety-split), on the LIRR, I had some interesting conversations with tired, but gleeful Puerto Rican Day Parade goers. We exchanged funny stories about past (and present) parades, passing the time till we hit the first stop - mine.

A neat day, all in all.

. . . . . What? Oh....David Boreanaz?

... What about him?....

[....hears the sounds of frustrated fangirls...]

Oh. THAT’s what you wanted to know? I thought you wanted to know about the play! My bad.

Erm, okay:

He’s tall. Like, you know...tall...almost imposing in height. (But, dudes: he was on stage, on a platform on stage, so: even taller)

He’s graceful. Remember Angel fighting the mercenary in Conviction? Graceful. DB? is graceful. He moves well. He doesn’t move dorkily or goofily. He’s neat - the way you expect a former athlete to move. It’s nice to watch. (Compare him with William Peterson of CSI. I’ve seen Peterson on stage - with Cherry Jones, back in the mid-90s. Peterson’s a terrific actor, but he clunks. He’s nowhere near as graceful as DB.) [ahem: back on-topic.]

He has a great sense of comic timing. You can’t learn timing if you don’t already have it; you can only hone it. He has it.

(channeling Anya.) He is nicely-built.

He was nervous - he spoke a bit rushed,then slowed down as the performance progressed.

He was funny - and seemed to enjoy himself as the performance went on and the audience clearly wasn’t a bunch of gooing, giggling fangirls there to .... goo and giggle.

He’s ....dudes: he’s a pretty man. Pretty, pretty, pretty. As good-looking as he is on TV/in film? He’s MUCH better-looking in RL. Hmmm. That’s a thing he shares with JFK, Jr. and Sigourney Weaver. I saw her on stage once (in a Christopher Durang play), and whoa! She is not all power and angles and jaws. No, no: she is willowy and pretty and almost delicate of features. That camera? It can change the way folks look. [ahem: back on-topic.]

His hair? Completely independent of his body. It seems to have a mind of its own. :-)

His impression of RMN: a wonder to see and hear. He has him spot on. He’s a great mimic! I remember from Bones that he does an outstanding John Wayne. I wish the writers of Bones would give him an opportunity to do more of his impressions, he’s that good.

His co-stars appear fond of him, and Chalfant, clearly, adores him. Every time she looked his way, she positively beamed with fondness. Same for Goodman. Occasionally, Chalfant and Goodman would share that, "isn’t he terrific! we adore him." look. I really, really, don’t think it was staged. I think they sincerely like him. (What’s not to like? He’s polite, funny, good-looking, and he does a great Nixon impression!)

How do I know these things? I was about 15 feet away from him, in the second row in a tiny theater.

He’s very, very, smart. How do I know that? Easy: 1. He’s using his summer break to beef up his creds with an independent (NOT a blockbuster) movie AND a turn on the NY stage. Translation: The man is a serious, hard-working, actor. 2. The indie film and the NY Stage gigs are geographically reasonably close and overlap over a short period of time. Translation: the man knows how NOT to waste money and time. 3. The NY stage thingy isn’t a full-fledged "get into character" role; it’s a "reading" role - less prep time involved, yet enables him to try his acting chops - most particularly his comedic acting chops. Translation: the man knows how to mini-max with the best of them. 4. The NY stage thingy is about an actor who loves his family deeply. Translation: That’s DB, and a reflection of his personal philosophy, at least that part of him as he’s shared it with The Press. 5. He found a way to spend time with his extended family, boost his acting creds, and make some bucks (and do it away from LA). Translation: this is one smart dude: don’t let his good looks fool you. There’s a capacious brain under the hood.

For further information on this performance, check out the LJ’s of the others in the group, most particularly, I expect a report from a2zmom, who spoke about his hands, which, frankly, I never noticed. I was just really, really, into the play, and proud of how Our Darling boy - now Our Darling Man - has grown. I’m proud to be a fan of DB.