BeeJay Aubertin-Clinton is presented his award winning Fringe show, Daphne and Me: A Boy Meets Girl Story for encore performances at Breakthrough Theater (419A W. Fairbanks Ave., Winter Park, Florida 32789). In the lobby audience members were asked to fill out name tags, you know those white and blue tags that all say, “Hello my name is…” Instead of writing a name B.J. wanted us to write a word that describes ourselves. I wrote “Sketcher”. While waiting to go into the theater I had a quick take with “Supportive”. She felt that summers are usually slow for theater but she has been seeing shows every week since Fringe ended. By the door, “Anxious” was concerned about when we could be seated.
This show is written by and performed by BeeJay as Daphne Banks. The show opened with a high energy lip synced musical number. It ended abruptly with Daphne exhausted and out of breath. This is when the pace shifted to a heartfelt story about how she came to be. During the course of the show she ultimately put on a name tag as well that said, “Confident”. She had to be confident because she grew up gay in a rural town.
Her mom was an incredibly strong woman who ended up in a string of abusive relationships. Women are incredibly strong and that is why men seem to need to beat them down. If allowed to truly shine there would be no stopping any woman. Daphne primped at her beauty table and had several costume changes in this fast paced look back at her life. Since she grew up in an insulated rural town there was no chance of finding a gay guy to date so she ended up with straight guys, a pattern that seemed to repeat often.
What resonated so strongly about this show was the sincerity of the monologue. Every life lesson was hard earned. Musical interludes must have been songs she loved to sing to while driving down the road with the wind in her hair. She was her own Thelma and Louise. After the show, Anne who had been behind the concessions stand in the lobby, got on stage and hugged BeeJay. “You are so brave.” she said. That was the sentiment that swelled throughout the show. Be brave and be yourself.