They came from Bellefonte, Huntingdon and Lewisburg to see Spalding Gray perform his 13th monologue, "Monster in a Box," Friday night. Judging from the smiles on their faces, no one went home disappointed.

"We're closet Spalding fanatics," said Dave Ames and Marc Kenny, students at Bucknell University in Lewisburg.

Gray entertained a full house in Schwab Auditorium with the story of his ordeal in writing his novel, "Impossible Vacation." The 1,900-page book, about Gray and his attempts to "vacate," took him four years to complete because of several interruptions. The delays ranged from an excursion to the Soviet Union to a Broadway appearance in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."

The book will be published in March 1992. "I think it's finished," Gray said.

For 100 minutes, Gray rehashed in a heavy New York accent all of the wild postponements of his novel. Whether doubled over with laughter when he recalled his visits to his psychoanalyst, or silenced with pity when he recounted his mother's suicide, the audience was engrossed in his chaotic life.

"I thought it was really absorbing," said Kip Woodring (freshman-film).

The only set of "Monster in a Box" was a table, chair and cardboard box, which contained the "monster" --Gray's book. The emptiness of the stage, combined with Gray's unique knack for story-telling, seized the audience's undying attention.

"I would love to go in a bar and just listen to him talk," said Betsy Kohr (senior-theater).

"Monster in a Box" is not a simple story. There are stories within stories and digressions within digressions. The monologue has the potential to be complex and confusing. However, because of Gray's brilliant ability to connect events such as his stay in a writer's colony and a trip to Nicaragua, the comic tale seems more orderly than what it actually is.

Gray's life may not be anymore thrilling than that of an average Penn Stater. But his monologue's humorous insight and profound honesty about the smallest details of an ordinary conversation may be something that only Spalding Gray could relay to an audience with such overwhelming approval.