SOURCE: "Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia: The Article," in Critical Texts, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1988, pp. 27-30.

In the following essay, Phelan provides critical analysts of the stage, film, and text versions of Swimming to Cambodia. Phelan is critical of Gray's egocentrism and "opportunistic" discussion of Cambodian genocide as a foil for his own spiritual awakening.

The most remarkable thing about Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia is its Zelig-like ability to change its form. First "an experience," then a memory of an experience, then an improvisational performance of a memory of an experience, then a performance script, then a book, then a film, Swimming to Cambodia is perhaps the ultimate postmodern text—ubiquitous, slippery, and apparently immune to the law of genre. But as Zelig soon discovered, such a Protean existence has its price. Swimming to Cambodia's easy mutation suggests that its ontology lies less in its ability to...