Spalding Gray’s Swimming to Cambodia

From the film we watched in class and online research

Confessional performance – trust and sympathy from the audience.
Characterisation – a version of one’s self and anyone else involved in the narrative.
Personal descriptive story/narrative/anecdotes
Dates, locations, and information weaved into it
Make comparisons to other things (similes/metaphors)
Use informal language fillers for a sense of authenticity (e.g. you know)
Movement simple but rehearsed actions (e.g. roll up sleeves, lower head, move forward)
Change voice/volume/pace/tone

Spalding Gray Inspired Monologue

(Read quick with each sentence getting quicker)
Every time I see my parents, generally my mother, she’ll comment on the way that I look, as if something’s different every time, even when its not, she’ll say to me, “you look thinner, don’t you think she looks thinner, Rick?”, or she’ll say, “what’s this?” and point to my stomach like a child would do the first time they try jelly. It’s always a comment on my appearance, my clothes, my hair, my skin, my makeup, my lack of makeup, anything she can see that is different to her. It always frustrates me that when I see them it’s the first thing they mention, weight and…
(Catch breath, tuck hair behind ear, sit forward)

(Read calmer)
When I was younger my mum used to search my room for wrappers.
Wrappers that I would have in bags under my bed for days. She would retrieve them and empty the contents onto my duvet and wait for me to come home. So, I would go upstairs and see what she had uncovered.

(Read at a constant quicker speed)
I used to say the wrappers were collected from my friends when we went to the park or the shop together. I said that my friends would throw their rubbish on the floor which a lot of them often did, and I never liked the fact they did that, it always seemed so rude and inconsiderate of other people to one moment have something in their hands and then toss it as soon as it had no use, preventable trash cluttering the town for weeks.
I would pick it up and put it in my pocket until I could find a bin. And like usual there’d be no bins around or I’d have the wrappers in my pocket for so long I’d forget they were there until I got home. Which is when I would place the wrappers in a carrier bag under my bed.

(Read slower and softer)
No, I didn’t like my friends throwing their rubbish on the floor, and yes, I would clean up after my friends. But the ones in the bags were not from them, they were all mine. This happened repeatedly as I grew up and I felt immensely guilty every time, but not because I had spent all of my money and eaten all this food week in, week out, but because I had been caught.