Nilaja Sun's Blues for a Gray Sun
Homage, Loss and Longing After an Untimely Death
A review by Jason Zinoman
11.24.04
 
 
 

It's only a desk, a glass of water and a microphone, but when this familiar combination, perched on top of a platform is rolled onstage at the end of Nilaja Sun's charming ''Blues for a Gray Sun,'' theatergoers may suffer pangs of sadness.

Spalding Gray, who committed suicide earlier this year, cannot occupy his famously spare set, but his influence can be found throughout Ms. Sun's solo show that mixes wrenching personal confessions with acute characterizations of the loudmouths in New York.

This appealingly frank drama -- alternating between the melancholy and the mirthful -- is a fitting tribute to Mr. Gray's legacy. In ''Blues,'' Ms. Sun describes searching for Mr. Gray's body; he was missing for a few months before he was found in the East River in March. Ms. Sun suffers from depression but discovers, through her quest for the eminent performance artist, that being alone can be as cathartic as it is devastating.

In between her monologues, Ms. Sun performs vivid, often surprising imitations of friends, family and random people on the street. There's the black Brooklynite who loves gentrification because it means more varieties of attractive women moving to his neighborhood. Ms. Sun's grandmother reveals shocking secrets about her father before insisting that that these not be put in her shows.

And Ms. Sun's spot-on imitation of Mr. Gray is worth the price of admission. The show closes Dec. 12.