Theatre in Review: This is My Favorite Song (Playwrights Horizons)I am grateful to Francesca D'Uva for introducing the concept of "loud smiling." At the top of her deceptively casual evening of comic confessions. she says, "I used to have this teacher in high school who used to smile so hard that you could hear it." She uses her proximity to the microphone to demonstrate and darned if it isn't true; getting the audience to participate produces an audible click that reverberates around the room. Who knew? The idea of loud smiling somehow seems central to D'Uva, whose brand of humor is so sly, her manner is so relaxed, that she might be Mike Birbiglia's lesbian kid sister. Most of the best material in This is My Favorite Song consists of throwaway lines delivered so casually that the laughs operate on a time delay; once a joke lands, she has already moved on to something else. For a good chunk of its running time, This is My Favorite Song is pure standup, allowing the performer to put her special spin on familiar material: a Catholic girlhood that included being cast, at age five, as Pontius Pilate ("I think the teachers knew I could do it because I had the gravitas"); her coming-out struggles ("I didn't even know what my relationship to men was. All I knew was that I practiced lightsaber techniques on play dates with them"); and her day job as a nanny ("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.") One of the funniest bits involves trying to explain the meaningless term "honey nut" to a tiny inquiring mind; let's just say it doesn't go well. These routines are punctuated with equally amusing songs. especially one detailing an imaginary fling with Colton Underwood, erstwhile star of The Bachelor, who ultimately came out as gay. But early on, D'Uva casually drops the news that her father was a very early COVID casualty, being put on a ventilator at the beginning of the pandemic and dying a few months later. At first, she doesn't seem deeply affected; she even spoofs her situation when, in response to her agent's suggestion that she use this tragic event for material, she composes the dirge-like "I Don't Want to Do This Show." But the topic keeps returning, with increasing force -- the details will take you back to those early chaotic days when nobody knew anything -- culminating with a number titled "Urn," which is all the more heartbreaking for its natural reticence. By then, one is acutely aware of the line the performer is walking. Indeed, This is My Favorite Song is a kind of tightrope act: D'Uva finds laughter in loss without minimizing the pain that comes with it. Refusing to pander, she never forgets she is an entertainer. Yet in her special sideways fashion, she is helping us confront those days of confusion and random death. This is a remarkably blunt piece that remains surprisingly self-possessed. In its modest, no-frills way, it speaks volumes about the pandemic most of us prefer not to talk about. Actually, that no-frills part isn't entirely true. If the production design by Sam Max, who also directed, is spare in a way typical of solo shows like this, Zack Lobel offers a mini lighting extravaganza. He makes good use of an upstage wall of two-light units plus a row of horizontal strips for light curtain effects and vertical bars for downstage side-light washes; a pair of fog units provide comic punctuation. It's an ideal match for D'Uva's deadpan style. Because understatement is what D'Uva is all about: She invites us in, wins us over, and, when we least expect it, quietly knocks us sideways. (She also does a mean Shakira imitation.) The evening ends with "Yes," which wraps up her comic, horrible, and comically horrible experience in a wrapping of grace. This is My Favorite Song induces plenty of loud smiling, along with some profound notes of regret. --David Barbour 
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