It's a Slippery Slope

 (Schoenberg Hall, UCLA; 450 seats; $ 26.50)

By PHIL GALLO

UCLA Center for the Performing Arts presents a work-in-progress in one act by Spalding Gray. Directed and written by Gray. Opened and reviewed May 6, 1996. Closes May 9. "Gray on Gray" runs May 11 and 12. Running time: 100 min.
 
Cast: Spalding Gray.
 

Spalding Gray brings his audience closer to his small circle of a family in "It's a Slippery Slope," a work-in-progressthat ostensibly recounts his learning to ski at the age of 52. The closeness of the key characters here provides far deeper resonance in his life than his usual victims, and what he sacrifices in laughs, he makes up for in telling anecdotes about his own -- often lacking -- abilities as a husband, son, father and lover.

"Slope," Gray's 14th monologue, is a little more than 30 performances old -- it was seen in December in La Jolla -- and as such it represents a finished script with the acting and inflection being developed with each reading. The show is scheduled to premiere in September at Chicago's Goodman Theater. (During his week's stay at UCLA, he will also perform "Gray on Gray," a Q&A piece.)

Dressed in checked shirt and jeans and seated behind the usual wooden table, Gray starts "Slope" at boarding school in Maine, 1956, where his fascination with the slopes begins. He equates skiing with upper-class Ivy League success stories, made possible only by succeeding in the math class he's failing. Hence skiing, despite its emotional pull, will be an activity that marks adult achievement, rather than teenage curiosity.

Monologue moves on to Gray's college years, early days as actor (in theater, he notes, "I can lead a passionate life with no consequences"), and the development of his particular craft. Skiing reenters the picture in Aspen and later in Stowe, Vt.; along the way, Gray examines his relationship with his former directing partner and ex-wife, Renee Shafransky, his love affairs, the birth of his son to new lover Kathie, the death of his father and their final visit, and his own reintroduction to New England (long a Manhattan resident, Gray was reared in Rhode Island). Of paramount concern is whether he will die at 52, the age at which his mother killed herself.

Gray paces the piece with the rush of a swoosh down the slopes; the general delivery reflects the up-and-down nature of skiing, the chugging of the lift and exhilaration of the downhill, and it's clear the turmoil and risk of a crash and injury boils at the base of the mountain. His nihilistic tendencies ride in tandem down the hills until the birth of his son; from there on, he has a greater sense of purpose that compels him to enjoy -- and even celebrate -- life.

"Slope" may well go down as Gray's most emotionally involving script. It rarely approaches the gut-busting level of "Gray's Anatomy," which Steven Soderbergh has filmed and BBC Films is selling at Cannes, and the randomness of his encounters is kept to a minimum. The characters have become familiar -- many were featured in his relatively factual novel, "Impossible Vacations"-- and the confessions here concern more than the author's sins; these are confessions about how he lives.