These leftovers are fresh

MORE than two years have passed since the death of acclaimed monologuist and storyteller Spalding Gray, but his widow, Kathleen Russo, says she is still surrounded by his voice. It is the sound of Gray’s good friends and colleagues speaking his words.

With the help of celebrities such as Teri Garr, Loudon Wainwright III, Margaret Cho, Tony Shalhoub, John C. Reilly, Miranda July and Roger Guenveur Smith, Russo has developed a celebration of her late husband with “Leftover Stories to Tell: A Tribute to Spalding Gray,” a show of readings of unpublished Gray works.

“What they are doing has become a really great way of keeping him alive,” Russo said.

The five nights of performances begin Wednesday and run through June 18 at the Freud Playhouse at UCLA. The engagement marks the West Coast portion of the tribute, which started last week in New York as a commemoration of what would have been Gray’s 65th birthday.

In addition to a core group of readers, the engagement, sponsored by UCLA Live, will feature several other celebrities who will be added the day of each performance. In addition to the unpublished work, excerpts from other well-known Gray monologues will be read.

Gray, who became famous with solo pieces such as “Swimming to Cambodia,” which explored his darkest concerns about life and death, committed suicide in 2004 after a bout with depression. It had followed a near-fatal car accident in 2001 in Ireland that left him with several health problems, including paralysis in one foot.

Gray left behind several filing cabinets filled with journals and other works such as short stories and poetry dating from the early 1960s to the time of his death.

“These works unveil what a incredible writer he was,” said Russo, who conceived the celebration with dance-performance artist Lucy Sexton. “What we all remember about Spalding was his performances, and what an incredible storyteller he was. But we hope this will show that people didn’t realize his full potential, that there is a real richness with his words.”

Some of the works that will be read include childhood memories and his thoughts concerning Sept. 11, 2001. What comes through in much of the work, Russo said, is Gray’s sense of destiny and dread.

“He really struggled with life,” she said. “He loved life, but then he was fearful of something terrible happening. Doing this project has been therapeutic for me so far, because it’s helping me understand what he was battling.”

Garr, who was introduced to Gray a decade ago through mutual friends, echoed that sentiment: “Spalding was never the same after the accident.”

The actress said she admired him for his honesty and ability to write stories “that could be personalized and understood by everybody.”

“Everything I saw and read of his, I could completely and totally relate to it,” Garr said. “He made this thing of solo storytelling OK. He was a great, great writer who could take the humanity of a situation and be absolutely right on.”

Wainwright said he was always struck by the onstage and offstage personas of Gray.

“I was always amazed at how much he was like the way he was on stage,” the singer-songwriter said. “He was very frank and honest, and the performances were graphically and daringly personal. It took a lot of bravery to do what he did. I’m just happy to be asked to be part of this. I was and am a fan of Spalding’s work.”

At a benefit performance of the piece in New York, Russo said the audience was crying and laughing hysterically. “We hope that’s what we accomplish in Los Angeles.”

More unpublished works may be featured in upcoming tributes. And producer-director Steven Soderbergh is using the works in a documentary on Gray.

Russo said that working on the project “has been very therapeutic for me -- it’s a way of keeping Spalding alive. At times, the loss of him really hits me. But working on this is very healing.”

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‘Leftover Stories to Tell’

A Tribute to Spalding Gray

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday through June 17 and 7 p.m. June 18

Where: Freud Playhouse, UCLA campus, Westwood

Price: $45; $15, students

Info: (310) 825-2101, www.uclalive.org