The human soul may have its own physiology. How else do you explain two people experiencing the same hardships and responding to them completely differently. One may succumb to the pressures of emotional or physical privation and either retreat from life or allow cynicism to lead them down a path of self-harm. The weight of the same difficulties may make the other even more resistant to defeat and fight with even greater ardor to succeed. Refugee busboys become restaurant titans and musically inclined street urchins become entertainment legends. In David Cale’s case, a refusal to live the expected life set him off on a journey of self-discovery leading to self-actualization and fame. His one-man show playing at the Goodman Theater through October 21st is an emotionally scenic and unsparing drive through his life. An autobiographical explanation for living life fully.
We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time is an oddly constructed vehicle to carry this message of transcendence. Like so much of the British writer and performer’s work, there are recurring themes that link back to his childhood in the little English industrial town of Luton where no body ever leaves. You either worked in the making of cars or the production of hats and then you died.
Cale doesn’t attack the core of his narrative head on but chooses to surround it with elaborately detailed biographical sketches of the people who make up his family. It takes a while to understand that his ultimate focus is on the older of the two sons who has an endearing love for and interest in birds. And Liza Minnelli. He not only analyzed himself by re-entering his skin of decades ago, he also inhabits that of his mother and father and becomes them as they fall in love, lose the love they have for one another and embark on loudly unhappy lives together. When one takes the life of the other, Cale’s treatment of the aftermath is stunning for its honesty and for the toughness of its candor. A gifted storyteller, his impersonations of others take on an eerie reality. This was especially true during the sequence exploring his father’s culpability in his mother’s death. Its poignancy enhanced the otherness quality of Cale’s persona.
Beautifully accompanied by five musicians, the performer often uses song to add dimension and another layer of texture to the emotions and dramas he’s portraying on stage. With the song, The Feral Child, he encapsulated the essence of the dystopian odyssey that was once his life.
We’re Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time
September 15 – October 21, 2018
Goodman Theatre
170 N. Dearborn
Chicago, IL 60601
312-443-3800
www.goodmantheatre.org
