David Cale's shocking family history underscores affecting 'We're Only Alive' at Goodman

“We're Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time” - ★ ★ ★ ★

Journalists once chased David Cale through the streets of the English town of Luton. But it took decades before the gay playwright and performer could fully share his shocking story in “We're Only Alive for a Short Amount of Time,” a solo musical memoir now receiving an engrossing world premiere at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

To reveal exactly what happened would spoil Cale's brave performance in “We're Only Alive.” Plus, it's not the entire focus of this deeply affecting collaboration with Goodman artistic director Robert Falls and composer/music director Matthew Dean Marsh.

Throughout the insightful “We're Only Alive,” Cale regales his audience with tales about his fraught family life in Luton, an industrial town with a reputation for being the butt of jokes.

Caught in the crossfire of sparring parents, Cale and his younger brother, Simon, coped by obsessively and dreamily throwing themselves into hobbies. Simon built and painted model airplanes, while David amassed a menagerie of tropical birds for a backyard aviary and “animal hospital.”

Cale's time and distance from his youth, however, have given him empathy and insight into his parents' struggles, as well as the damage inflicted by his controlling grandparents. Large swathes of “We're Only Alive” feature Cale channeling and performing as his parents.

He drops hints early on as to why he later changed his name and fled to the United States.

As he shares personal stories, Cale addresses larger themes around remorse over quashed dreams and the tenuous legacies that parents leave to their children. Though these topics would seem unlikely for a musical, Cale and Marsh craft songs and weave in underscoring that only heightens the emotional impact.

Since Cale's storytelling is so compelling, it makes sense that Falls and his design team keep the staging as stark and simple as possible. Lighting designer Jennifer Tipton is particularly effective in helping to delineate Cale's shifting characters and illuminating the outstanding onstage musicians at key points.

Like lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel's acclaimed graphic novel “Fun Home,” which inspired a Tony Award-winning musical, “We're Only Alive” operates as an exposing memoir that captures societal currents in a specific time and place. And rather than feeling exploitative, “We're Only Alive” allows Cale as an artist to find catharsis by sharing and dramatizing what could have been a debilitating past.

Though Cale could have delved even deeper (or maybe had a sweeter singing voice), “We're Only Alive” ultimately succeeds on the strength of its material and the man at its center. British journalists may have pursued him for his family's shocking past, but Cale has found a way to artistically soar above it.

<B>Location:</B> Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago, (312) 443-3800 or goodmantheatre.org

<b>Showtimes:</b> 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (starting Oct. 2, also Tuesday, Oct. 9), 2 and 7:30 p.m. Thursday (no matinee Oct. 18) and Sunday (evening shows end Oct. 7), 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; through Oct. 21

<b>Tickets:</b> $25-$70

<b>Running time:</b> About 90 minutes with no intermission

<b>Parking:</b> Area pay garages and limited metered street parking

<b>Rating:</b> Discussions of adult subject matter; for mature teens and older