Caught in silhouette at the back of the stage, David Cale stands there silently, then advances to the microphone stand and the pool of light that await him at the front. He is holding a large yellow chrysanthemum, plucked from a bouquet in a vase that holds its own spotlight at his left. He speaks in a soothing, alluring voice, just a trace of Tennessee Williams South mixed in with a genteel English accent, giving us a little lecture on the nature and nurturing of chrysanthemums.
Bingo. He’s got it. He’s hooked us. The seduction has begun.
The character Cale is presenting ever so exquisitely in these first few seconds of his captivating 70-minute monologue is “Lillian,” a middle-age London bookstore clerk who tells, in an extraordinary manner, how, in her perfectly ordinary life, she met and loved a younger man named Jimmy.
Cale, who has played the Goodman Studio Theatre several times before with his solo shows, had briefly introduced Lillian as a character in one of them. But this time he devotes the entire evening to her.
Her love story is familiar, and it has a predictably sad little ending. But it is crafted so strongly, staged so delicately (by Joe Mantello) and delivered so endearingly by Cale that it never loses its grip on the hearer.
For every turn of Lillian’s tale, for each of its emotional nuances, Cale, Mantello and Beverly Emmons, their lighting designer, have found exactly the right touch for the dreamy, wistful, sweet romance they spin out with such skill.
Cale carefully limits his movements, running a hand up and down an arm to suggest arousal or placing that hand over his face to indicate embarrassment.
But it is clear, in the slightest of these gestures, that he is presenting a woman of tender sensibilities and limited horizons who has, for all her mundane existence, a sharp wit and a deftness in expressing herself. Speaking of her first husband’s lovemaking, for example, she likens him to a waiter in a fairly decent restaurant, eager to serve but not delivering very good food.
Cale’s manner of speaking is remarkable: soft, but absolutely clear. The rushes and pauses in his delivery flow with the rhythm of finely constructed poetry. And the English accent, just a little twee, adds a charming touch of girlishness to Lillian’s romance.
We learn of Lillian all that we really need to know, and no more. Cale is wise enough to leave well enough alone. By the time we come to the end of the story, with a final, breathtaking burst of chrysanthemums buttoning down the moment, the story of Lillian and her Jimmy has come full circle. And it’s most satisfying.
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“Lillian”
When: Through Nov. 16
Where: Goodman Studio Theatre, 200 S. Columbus Drive
Phone: 312-443-3800
