Francesca D’Uva in This is My Favorite Song (Photo: Valerie Terranova)

Comedian Francesa D’Uva’s father died in June 2020 from COVID. He was in a coma in a hospital on a ventilator where his family could not visit him.

It is not the easiest starting place for the autobiographical show, This is My Song.  Frankly, D’Uva knows this.

She sings at one point “I don’t want to do this show.”  But her “talent representatives” have pushed her to do so. Part of the show is about getting back on the creativity horse after her loss and trying to figure out how to be funny or do comedy when it all feels meaningless.

Rather than a wholly somber piece about loss or grief, it is a mix of theatrical stylings—D’Uva sings, tells stories, and folds in some stand-up as well.  She is affable and the material rich but moments are stronger than the whole. Even as a meditation on grief, sometimes it is hard to see the through line.

At times, it’s like D’Uva is putting on Les Mis in the backyard–big emotions, big songs, a certain razzmatazz to the creativity that is both well-meaning but very rough around the edges. For the most part, D’Uva is alone on stage with only the occasional prop. The show is built up with some helpful light cues and goofy smoke machines. But it is largely fueled by D’Uva’s energy.

She explains that she works as a nanny and you can see a playful childlike nature to her. Her stories of her childhood are vivid and specific. She was the quiet and weird kid who is at ease with death thanks to being taken to lots of open-casket Catholic funerals (I thought I was the only one). But she had a fear of ghosts and the devil showing up in her room (same—wait, is the fear of being haunted by Catholic relatives not normal?).

She spends four years on the swim team in high school but is terrible at swimming and diving. As a lesbian, she reflects on her closeted years and how talking to women struck her with fear.

Sometimes Shakira shows up (D’Uva does a very good impression of Shakira’s line delivery) and is a doctor?  When D’Uva has an extended sequence about marrying the gay bachelor Colton Underwood, I may have lost the plot.

Truly, the strongest segment was about the cruel casting realities she experienced as a kid for the kindergarten nativity scene. There is a mix of fantasy as she imagines the sexy “Virgin Queen” Mary asking her to be her “blue collar hunk” Joseph. Meanwhile, in reality, she gets cast as a cow in the nativity play. There is strict hierarchy based on looks operating in the kindergarten casting system. It’s brutal.  But an early lesson in strict gender roles and who holds the power.

The material flits from these school memories to nannying to her search for answers in the wake of her father’s death.

At one point, the tone of the show shifts and D’Uva makes music using vibrations on her father’s urn. It’s a solemn moment in what is otherwise a lively show. Here it becomes deeply personal and almost too intimate for the show. Like should we be watching this?

It’s a bit of tonal whiplash that, maybe with more shaping, can be ironed out.  The songs tend to blend together and I longed for perhaps a bit more clarity in their execution.  It’s why the nativity stands out. Lyrically and narratively it was clear.

In one part of the show, she sings she is the “victim of the audience’s eyes.” It’s a powerful statement but sort of gets swept by quickly. Maybe ashes fell at another point in the show but didn’t realize that was happening.

D’Uva offers a lot of laughs and brings to life her personal family tragedy vividly.  The show just needs a bit more corralling to get this scrappy material into a seamless show.