MARISSA MAIER on the last thing that made her say ‘Wow!’:
As it happened, it had occurred just a few weeks ago at The Public Theatre on Lafayette, where I was seeing Mike Daisey’s new one-man show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” played at a heart-popping level as the audience shuffled into the small theater. As I made my way to my seat, I passed the small stage with its two props: a glass of water and a desk. Those two everyday items, in that context, were what prompted my “Wow.”
Those were the favored props my stepfather, Spalding Gray, used when he performed. When I was growing up, my family and I spent countless hours watching him rehearse, tech and perform his monologues, until what had seemed to us at the time to be trivial moments in a day were spun into a beautiful story of humor, heartbreak and love.
