Review: Francesca D’Uva Gets Us to Smile — Noisily — in This Is My Favorite Song

At the beginning of This Is My Favorite Song, comedian Francesca D’Uva tells us about a schoolteacher who fascinated her as child. Not because of what the teacher had to say, but because when she smiled, it made a sound. As though we might not believe her, she asks us all to smile at the same time. On the count of three, we hear a surprisingly loud (and a little bit gross) click of moisture.

That’s the extent of her crowd work, and it’s one of the funniest jokes in D’Uva’s new solo show, which is now running at Playwrights Horizons under the direction of Sam Max. D’Uva has been doing comedy for a while, but she fell out of love with it temporarily during Covid, when she lost her father to the illness. She loves it again now, and she sets our expectations high with that first chuckle.

And though she does deliver some hearty laughs elsewhere, her show wobbles unevenly as she experiments with comedic musical interludes and talks heartbreakingly about the loss of her father. It’s a lot to attempt in 80 minutes, and the result is a show in which neither humor nor pathos finds focus.

D’Uva is at her best when she’s relating stories from her life, like when she joined the swim team as a girl but could barely stay afloat and was presented with a special also-showed-up award from her possibly lesbian coach. Or when she was a young woman just coming out as a lesbian, and how her parents thought she was like one of those “no-fuss girls” in the movies who don’t look like much to begin with but then end up getting a big makeover. It didn’t happen.

Stories like that ring true and get laughs as D’Uva speaks in her mellow, matter-of-fact voice while dressed in a slightly bulky, funereal-black suit and tie. We also learn that she has had nannying gigs on the side. Her impersonations of the brats she takes care of smack of entitlement and snobbery, and she gives them cartoonish British accents make that them sound like psychotic Banks children.

But the laughs fade when the lights dim and she launches into a forehead-wrinkling song inspired by “The Perfect Nanny” from the movie Mary Poppins. Vocally, D’Uva is nowhere near Julie Andrews, and that would be fine if the lyrics were funny, but they’re not — and suddenly the accents seem forced too. The musical number is one of couple in the show that could be jettisoned.

An exception is a hilarious bit when she remembers wanting to be Joseph in her school’s Nativity play and imagines herself saving the life of a boy when a Crucifix falls on him. “What would Shakira do?” she asks, as she does a spot-on impression of the Colombian singer. It’s ridiculously entertaining absurdity; more of that, please.

If there’s a thread that runs through the show, it’s the memory of her father’s death in 2020. The comedy stops during a long scene in which D’Uva talks about the day she lost her father. It’s a moving passage that culminates in a song about loss and healing. Director Max gives the scene a respectful sobriety, augmented by Zack Lobel’s dim lighting silhouetting D’Uva as she sings and plays a keyboard. I don’t know about the rest of the audience, but this happened to be my favorite song.

D’Uva is obviously still experimenting with her format as well as the challenges of navigating abrupt tonal shifts. But with some generous edits, there’s enough good material here for a solid (and shorter) show. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how she makes us smile next time.