Family drama is on the menu as Tony winner Billy Porter invites us into his childhood home in Pittsburgh

Sometimes it’s refreshing when an author lets the drama hang out, rather than hiding it behind clever subtext and furtive glances. That’s certainly the case with While I Yet Live, now making its world premiere with Primary Stages at the Duke on 42nd Street. Billy Porter (the Tony-winning star of Broadway’s Kinky Boots) penned this semiautobiographical tale of a Pentecostal black family in Pittsburgh as a love letter to the strong women in his life. Like most love letters, it has a tendency to wax poetic and verge on maudlin. But it is never boring. While I Yet Live is the kind of fascinating mess that makes not-entirely-clear storylines and tangential monologues forgivable. You simply can’t turn your eyes away. Calvin (Larry Powell) is a young gay black man living with several generations of his family in a big house in Pittsburgh. There’s his grandmother Gertrude (Lillias White), Gertrude’s sister Delores (Elain Graham), Calvin’s sister Tonya (Sheria Irving), and their mother, Maxine (S. Epatha Merkerson). Additionally, the family has a couple of long-term houseguests: Maxine’s best friend Eva (Sharon Washington), who is suffering from a terminal illness (AIDS is strongly suggested) and the mysterious war veteran Uncle Arthur (portrayed by an uncredited arm behind a door) who hides in his room all day watching Sanford and Son. Calvin’s stepfather Vernon (Kevyn Morrow) is the “man of the house,” much to the dismay of the increasingly rebellious Calvin. It’s Thanksgiving Day 1994, and this delicate ecosystem is on the verge of collapse.