With a thin build, dark hair and animated facial expressions,27-year-old David Terry may resemble what his alter ego SpaldingGray looked like at that age.
Seated behind an oak desk, wearing a red plaid shirt, speakinginto a black and silver microphone, the communication studiesgraduate student devotes his HopKins Black Box Theatre performance,”A Magical Mystery Tour of American Theatre,” to accuratelymimicking the style of the late actor and storyteller.
“He was one of my heros,” Terry said of Gray.
So Terry, who said Gray was like a surrogate father to himbecause his own father was too boring, spends an hour and 15minutes following in his hero’s footsteps.
Gray began his career performing one-man shows around the age of30, Terry said.
Gray typically gave truthful depictions of situations andfeelings from his past.
During the monologue, Terry uses three techniques to spurmemories of his life and share them with listeners.
He writes words that remind him of his acting experiences oncards and puts them in a pile. He also has the audience write wordson cards and puts them in another pile. Lastly, he selects variousbooks of Gray’s monologues and stacks them into a third pile.
As Terry performs, he casually picks up a card or book, reads itand begins telling a story.
Terry said he imitates Gray’s style of being a “talking head” onstage.
The performance is about telling the stories of his own lifehonestly, then letting the audience draw conclusions about it,Terry said.
As Terry flows from story to story, the audience laughs as hejokes about his penis being “less than average,” then falls quietjust moments later as he speaks about a poor relationship with hisfather.
And although, by nature, each performance is different, Terrymost likely will warn audience members of his tendency to take offhis clothes, provide humorous anecdotes about traveling the countryand deliver emotional accounts of his teenage evangelicalyears.
In fact, during Friday night’s show, Terry shared severalstories about his religious teenage years and how dramatically hehas changed since then.
In high school Terry said he spent so much time trying to preachto his friends about Jesus, that one day he just fell flat andcould not do it anymore.
Looking back, Terry said always telling people what they shoulddo wore away at him. Now, however, by opening himself up andtelling the good and bad from his stories, he feels he is gettingpieces of himself back.
On a lighter note, Terry also may even break into song as he didFriday, signing a portion of Tom Waits’ “Time.”
Singing during a performance is something Terry said he hasnever done before.
“That was actually one of my favorite parts of the performancetonight,” Terry said of the musical portion.
Whatever Terry talks about, he always tells the “meat” of astory, then ends it suddenly and picks up another card.
“I try to stay away from moralizing pieces,” he said. “Theaudience can figure out what it means to them.”
Terry also said he ends his stories abruptly because Gray’s lifeended that way.
Gray, who had a history of depression and suicide attempts,killed himself at age 62 earlier this year.
Terry said he was writing his dissertation on Gray when helearned of his death.
Despite the dark moments, Terry said the point of hisperformances is his connection with the audience and experiencingthe honesty that comes with telling his life stories.
Due to Hurricane Ivan, some of Terry’s performances werecancelled and have been rescheduled for this week. Students can seeTerry’s performance on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in 137 Coatesat 7:30 p.m. A $5 donation is requested, but not required.