SUNDAY 8 | In 1983, lanky New England actor Spalding Gray arrived in Cambodia to play the role of the US ambassador’s aide in Roland Joffé’s film The Killing Fields. Over the course of the following two years, Gray perfected a monologue about his experiences in Southeast Asia and in 1986 Jonathan Demme, who found fame directing Silence Of The Lambs, filmed it at New York City’s Performing Garage. The set of Swimming To Cambodia consists of little more than a table, a pair of maps and a background painting of sea and clouds, but Gray’s ramblings encompass everything from journalistic egos to a curious row with his New York neighbour. Interspersed with harrowing details of Cambodia’s history are tales of marijuana binges, sex shows in the bordellos of Bangkok and Gray’s own neurotic fear of sharks, remembered only when he finds himself swimming in an uncharted sea.
WHO: Spalding Gray
WHAT: Swimming To Cambodia screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 4pm September 8
WHY: “Who needs metaphors for hell or poetry about hell? This really happened, here on this earth.” – Spalding Gray