This Is My Favorite Song

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Walking into the Peter Sharp Theater we have no hint of what is behind what look like opaque vinyl shower curtains from one end of the stage to the other. Within moments of her appearance, decked out in a black suit and tie like the kid who hates to dress up to go to Grandma’s for Sunday dinner, we know Francesca D’Uva just doesn’t want to be here. At the end of 80 minutes, we are so glad she came.

She breaks the ice by letting us know how sensitive she is to mouth sounds telling us about a high school teacher who smiled so hard you could hear it. On the count of three, we all try to copy the smile noise.  “I love bringing people together like that. That will be the only piece of crowd work I do tonight. So hope you enjoyed it. You’re done.”

In her four years of high school she never set out to be an overachiever. All four years on the swim team she was never asked to participate in a single race. “I think I joined because it was the only sport where I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody while I was doing it because it’s underwater. I was not good or fast.” A lesbian coach that took a liking to her created a “best effort” inaugural Coach’s Award as an encouragement to Francesca in her final year. Not bad for someone who was taught to swim by her father, a man who could not swim himself. Imagine her shock when she found his copy of “Conquer Your Fear of The Water: An Innovative Self Discovery Course In Swimming.”

As she was always close with her father, his Covid-related death took a toll on her emotionally. Creatively, she now had nothing. Between the imposed lockdown and his death she pulled away completely from performing. “But eventually I decided to go back to performing, because it is the only applicable skill I have to contribute to the workforce. Plus, my talent representatives did subtly suggest that my father dying of Covid could be good source material for something. And I thought what the heck, I’ll try it…I wrote a song about the only thing I knew at the time: that I did not want to perform at all! And it was the first thing I had written in years that actually made me laugh. I felt like I had figured out that I had been trying to outrun my reality on stage. And my reality was that my inner feeling of safety and peace, a product of my happy upbringing, had been completely shattered by grief.”

Director Sam Max, also responsible for the minimal sleek production design, finds clear paths from what may seem like disjointed connections but when push comes to shove the piece is about grief, something that never obeys rules. It is best to let Francesca gradually find her way. Zack Lobel’s lighting is sensitive to the movement of the moods, but there’s no denying the back wall that looks like dozens of car headlights brings us back to the fact this is a show.

When it was okay to go back to work she returned to something she really enjoyed: nannying. “But kids in New York can be tough, and they will tell you when they think you’re doing a bad job and they can fire you and they will fire you.” It doesn’t appear to be any different than doing stand-up to an unappreciative adult audience.

Though shy, participating in church functions emboldened Francesca. As a five-year-old she was Pontius Pilate in the Easter play (because of her gravitas?) and learned early on that the kindergarten nativity scene casting was totally looks- based, not unlike the realization song “Dance 10, Looks 3” from A Chorus Line. The “sexiest boy and girl kindergarteners” were Jesus and Mary, the pretty girls were angels, the handsome boys were shepherds and everyone else was a farm animal. Poor Francesca was a cow because those enhancements they talk about in “Dance 10 Looks 3” aren’t readily available when you’re five.

She often asks herself “What would Shakira do?” and Francesca responds to her own question mimicking the famous contralto vibrato. When she needs approval for her performance we are treated to “Francesca, you will be the greatest cow they’ve ever seen/ Francesca, you are better than your classmates, they’re so mean/ I like you better than Pique, my real ex-husband/ I actually would really like to go on a date when you are older.”

Francesca holds court about sex describing herself as “sexually homo, though not practicing.” Unabashed, “the only sexual experience I ever had until I was 23 was when I went to a strip club to get a lapdance in Grand Theft Auto, the video game. And even that only lasted like 10 seconds.” Afraid to talk to girls her own age lest they catch on to her true attraction, she lets on that she has a crush on a young man she hangs out with. It’s all a ruse until he makes it universally known that he isn’t interested in her. Outing herself to her parents was less dramatic than she anticipated; they always just thought of her as what the media calls a “no fuss girl,” implying a no makeup, messy hair kind of girl who will magically have a transformative makeover to become sexy.

Her parents didn’t understand that doesn’t happen for all no fuss girls. “Some stay on the track forever. And are just gay. And that’s why parents shouldn’t be allowed to watch media like that. It’s unhealthy. It’s the same as letting children of divorce watch the Parent Trap. It sets unrealistic expectations.” Yet she fantasizes about what it would be like to have a boyfriend. One of the big production numbers in This Is My Favorite Song imagines her with the man who could make her happy, Colton Underwood, from Season 23 of The Bachelor…coincidentally the first of the bachelors to come out as gay. Hmmm…

After months of watching her father hooked up to a ventilator on Zoom, the hospital makes the call for Francesca’s family to say their goodbyes. They are uniformed in full body hazmat suits with hair covers, shoe covers, masks, face shields and gloves. Each must visit him alone with mom first and Francesca last. Francesca walks in ten seconds after her father passes. Looking at him dead calls to mind their last time together when she, ironically now, asked him how he remembered his own father – did he visualize him as a younger man or as he was when he died.

She thinks creatively of how to process his death and her grief. “Sometimes I make music that’s not meant to be comedic, but I don’t really perform it because it feels personal. But I decided to make a piece of music with the urn that contains his ashes. I used a contact mic, which is a little microphone that picks up the vibrations of objects, and stuck it on the urn and then connected the mic to my computer so the sounds of the urn are being processed through the computer. So I’m basically using it as an instrument to sing with.” She performs the moving “Urn” for us.

In the final moments she envisions herself as a doctor in a trauma center (something she once saw herself becoming, rather than a performer) and the patient that needs attention is her father. Once Dr. D’Uva “kills” Dr. Shakira, it is up to Francesca to remove her father’s Covid. After her father sings a solo encouraging his daughter, Francesca leaves us with “my dad came back to life and now he’ll never die/ and so will no one else ‘cause I’m a doctor now/ and when I close my eyes it’s playing in my mind/ I heard it all along this is my favorite song.” Often somber, but ultimately uplifting, Francesca holds our hands through what was a brutal time for her and a touching learning experience for us.

This Is My Favorite Song (through December 13, 2024)

Playwrights Horizons

Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 West 42nd Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit http://www.my.playwrightshorizons.org

Running time: 80 minutes without intermission