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Though, to be fair, that's more or less what happened to Calvin (Larry Powell), a young black man from Pittsburgh, at some point in the not-so-distant past. He barely escaped from the loving, if frequently too tight, grasp of his mother, Maxine (S. Epatha Merkerson), after revealing that his relationship with her husband and Calvin's stepfather, Vernon (Kevyn Morrow), was, shall we say, not exactly a pure one. The only way for him to find his own identity—as an adult, as a gay man, and as a Broadway star—was to vanish and begin again in New York. The repercussions of this act, on both Calvin and those he left behind, form the compelling spine of While I Yet Live, though the evening itself is somewhat less gripping. Porter, a forceful and rangy singer who last year won a Tony for his performance in Kinky Boots, obviously has a strong connection to the material and the people it documents—especially Maxine, who is depicted with an effusive warmth and an all-encompassing devotion to her family and faith that transcends the mysterious disability, apparently acquired during childbirth, that's relegated her to leg braces and wheelchairs. And as long as Porter sticks close to these qualities, his writing is affectingly, inescapably human. Overall, however, there's a sloppiness to the storytelling that prevents total absorption of the latent emotions at work. The play is narrated by Calvin's younger sister, Tonya (Sheria Irving), from an indeterminate point (or indeterminate points) in the future, that allows Porter a vantage point for critiquing the religion that comes between the various family members. But this introduces the typical problem of events unfolding that Tanya is not present to witness, which muddies the waters as to what's happening, or why.
The apex of this, but the nadir of the play, occurs early in the second act, when Calvin and Delores are variously tormented by a cacophony of these voices—only some of whom are coming from people we can obviously pinpoint as being dead. And let's not dwell on the upright piano, a crowning feature of James Noone's handsome and cozy two-level set, that plays itself—another messy instance of Porter underlining far too baldly the spirits that are controlling these lives. Porter is simply trying to do too much too broadly, and without earning—or at least justifying—the myriad devices he deploys to get there. The most moving moments in the play are those that are stripped of the pretense: the cancer-riddled Eva confessing to an affair with the preacher, knowing the moral outrage with which Maxine is likely to explode; a repentant Calvin, many years later, trying to convince his mother she can no longer care for herself. But even these are muted by their surroundings, leaving them oases of clarity amid the confusions of a universe that's thrown up its hands at the prospect of trying to make sense of it all. If not for Merkerson, you'd be hard-pressed not to give up to. But she anchors this reality with a performance of gorgeous sensitivity, guiding Maxine along a path from judgmental bystander to independent woman to dependent mother. Every setback that befalls Maxine seems to etch a new line on Merkerson's face, and we feel, right alongside her, the tribulations of trying to believe in God and rational familial order when everything is trying to pull her in a different direction. Her disquiet, rage, and eventual submission to fate give her Maxine an epic and tragic, but ultimately satisfying, trajectory that energizes Merkerson, us, and the play. Unfortunately, no one else quite matches her; Powell doesn't let us see how the abused Calvin became the self-assured man we encounter later, a necessary transformation (especially given that Porter elides in the script), and Irving's brash, smirking cynicism doesn't give Tonya much of anywhere to go. Graham, Morrow, Washington, and White are all fine in their roles, but can't overcome how quickly their characters appear and disappear from time and memory. That undoubtedly plays into Porter's point that it's difficult, if not altogether impossible, to understand all the experiences that make us who we are, and that we often have to settle for one as the most crucial center point for our being. In While I Yet Live, that's Maxine, and Merkerson is more than up to the challenge of portraying her as the dominant force in the chronicle. But she has to compete so much with a play that wants to be about a dozen other things as well that she may suffer the worst fate of all when you're forced to wonder whether she's merely another figment of your imagination.
While I Yet Live
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