Under the psychic knife Essay Example For Students

Under the psychic knife Essay In Spalding Grays newest monologue Grays Anatomya work in progress currently touring the country the existentialist storyteller turns his high-powered, introspective lens on his own body ailments. The main topic is an injury to Grays left eye a macular pucker, which means the vitreous humor, or gelatin, in the eye has liquefied. The monologue recounts numerous attempts to find a cure, including alternative therapies sweat lodges, dietary purges (he gave up eating fish for a while), shaman faith healers and psychic surgery that Gray explored after a retina specialist told him conventional surgery could either heal him or lead to blindness. As in his past monologues, Gray gleans much of his material from outings in New Age country. Id say I often get bored by what I consider mainstream American life, he explains in a phone interview from Lake Tahoe where he says hes searching for a sport that will take me out of my mind. Grays seemingly casual collisions with the other-worldly (like his dropping in at an L.A. convention for people whod been beamed aboard space ships, or his impromptu visit to a Brazilian faith healer whom hed heard touted in a Berkeley juice bar) provide heady material for his solo spiels. But even Grays confrontations with the irredeemably mundane (like his six-day hike through the hills of Malibu with a group of California weightwatchers they have one glass of orange juice then walk for five hours oh, boy!) can seem outlandish when filtered through his absurdist sensibility. Several vignettes in the new monologue are recollections of encounters with esoteric or oddball therapy groups. I like to be involved with groups, and then leave them and tell stories about them. Its awful for the group. And sometimes for Gray. A sweat-lodge leader, who said sitting naked around steaming rocks in a tent could cure Grays eye, accused Gray of maligning her group when, in an introduction to Grays Anatomy in the New York Times Magazine last May, Gray contrasted the original American Indian sweat lodge with the contemporary counterpart he visited: It used to be made of stretched animal skins over bent branches, now its made of stretched plastic over bent plastic rods. She was very hurt about the reference to plastic, he says. In fact I think it was mostly wood, and maybe some plastic. Gray admits that he tends to hyperbolize. I refer to myself as a poetic journalist. I dont take notes. But he insists that the outlines of his stories are true. I cant make things up very well. I wish I could. I would be much less ravaged. I could stay home. Id have a home. Grays quest for a miracle cure took him to a slew of psychic surgeons in the Philippines. The quirkiest of them show up in Grays Anatomy. I went to a man named Jun Labo, he recalls, spelling the name tentatively. Labo is known jokingly in the grapevine as the Elvis Presley of psychic surgeons. He looks like a kind of movie star with a Beatles haircut and two gold chains around his neck and gold rings on his fingers. And when he operates, he operates with cowboy boots on and a butchers apron and a light blue gown. And with a very large crucifix behind him. Labos surgical uniform, rather than withering Grays interest, piqued it. I let him operate on me. Psychic surgeons, he explains matter-of-factly, reach right through your skin, into your body without any incision. They pull out cancer and stuff and throw it in a bucket. Ultimately, what Gray wants to see in a bucket is not simply his liquified vitreous humor, but the aging process itself. The eye ailment, he says, is a serious problem in the sense that its deeply psychological. Its the first kind of thing that reminded me I was 50 years oldthat some of my parts were growing old. .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 , .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .postImageUrl , .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 , .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:hover , .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:visited , .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:active { border:0!important; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:active , .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2 .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .uc94b65ee95e2b3d5b944fa43294433c2:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: The Joy of Theater EssayEventually Gray opted for conventional surgery. It helped a little. Maybe 20/70 versus 20/200. Though the monologue revolves around Grays retinal disintegration, it also has its digressions. Much of the psychological richness and ironic humor of Grays pieces stems from the provocative detours he unspools from his brain and then weaves into the fabric of his tale. Gray tracks stray thoughts and feelings that most of us suppress, analyzes each with the detachment of a behaviorist, then ties them, sometimes neatly, sometimes not, into the universal themes of his piece. Ironically, the immediacy of Grays delivery derives from this detachment. He claims that life is most real for him when hes recounting his experiences seated at his signature table with nothing on it but a glass of water and his elbows. Im most present when Im sitting at that table. Telling a story about what happened during the day is more real than the day because I create it. The day was created by someone else. In performances at the Cleveland Play House in May, Grays Anatomy was still evolving Grays trademark pauses didnt always meaningfully punctuate his run-on reminiscences and allow the deadpan to settle, and the pieces lurid climax dripped with so much gore from Jun Labos frenzied psychic scalpel, it felt as if the story had hemorrhaged. But the bones of Grays Anatomy are in place, and its performer/author will be fine-tuning it this month in performances at the Chicagos Goodman Theatre, Sept. 7-12, and San Franciscos Solo Mio Festival, Sept. 16-25, and at theatres across the country thorugh May.