{"id":370759,"date":"2025-07-24T23:50:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T03:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/?p=370759"},"modified":"2025-07-24T23:50:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T03:50:40","slug":"2025-district-fringe-review-be-good-with-paulette-by-daniel-maseda-4-%c2%bd-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dctheaterarts.org\/2025\/07\/24\/2025-district-fringe-review-be-good-with-paulette-by-daniel-maseda-4-%c2%bd-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 District Fringe Review: ‘ “Be Good!” with Paulette\u2019 by Daniel Maseda (4 \u00bd stars)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Y<\/span>ou can learn a lot about a character by how they enter a room. In \u201cBe Good\u201d with Paulette<\/em>, now playing at DC\u2019s District Fringe Festival, the title character\u2019s entrance is utterly ridiculous. The mustachioed man, Paulette (brilliantly performed by the show\u2019s playwright, Daniel Maseda), knocks on the door of the theater, setting up the audience for a knock-knock joke. However, Paulette can\u2019t help himself, interrupting the audience and guiding us to then ask \u201cWhom?\u201d and then \u201cWhomsoever it may be today?\u201d This interaction is the entire character: fastidiously presented and completely sincere, but technically incorrect and hilarious to watch.<\/p>\n

What follows is a cavalcade of increasingly silly audience interactions. Paulette asks if he\u2019s overstayed his welcome, curious as to how this room is not the Notebook Society. He asks audience members their jobs \u2014 when one person responded that she was a \u201cfundraiser,\u201d he responded loudly, \u201cAh! An arsonist!\u201d Soon, we come to know his idiosyncratic approach to language: malapropisms, non sequiturs, and playful (if labored) turns of phrase. By the time Paulette asks someone, \u201cCan I make profound eye witness to your eyes for just three seconds?\u201d you realize this isn\u2019t the preamble to the show, this is <\/em>the show.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Courtesy of ‘”Be Good!” with Paulette.’<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maseda has created a fascinating theatrical space, brimming with details while formally abstract. The show is not plot-heavy: Paulette\u2019s attempt to get onto the stage is its own odyssey, and taking off his sweater becomes a nearly bureaucratic process. Maseda also doesn\u2019t burden Paulette with some tragic backstory or psychoanalysis. All we have is Paulette\u2019s interactions with the audience, which start as simple crowd work but soar into laugh-out-loud delirium. Once we understand that Paulette will never give a straightforward answer to our questions, the audience starts asking increasingly absurd questions \u2014 until our mutual ridiculousness forms a bond of respect, but also a simmering sense of loss.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to track when, exactly, this sense of loss arrives. Without indulging in the analysis that Maseda resists, it\u2019s clear that Paulette is obsessed with always behaving correctly in every social interaction \u2014 but that obsession is the very thing making him awkward, turning him into both a comic fool and a tragic hero. There are moments when Maseda\u2019s freewheeling action coheres into pure physicality, whether it be somersaulting comedy or horrifying stares. It felt like I was watching a confused child in a grown man\u2019s outfit, which is how so many of us feel every day.<\/p>\n

Maseda\u2019s working in a tradition of comedians confronting polite society but also society itself, including Oscar Wilde<\/a> and Nathan Fielder<\/a>. Occasionally, I wished \u201cBe Good!\u201d <\/em>was more upfront about the society it was confronting. Paulette seems trapped in a mid-Atlantic world (his clothing feels distinctly mid-20th century, and he speaks in an enunciated American accent with some British phrases thrown in), so it\u2019s hard to know exactly what world Paulette seeks to assimilate.<\/p>\n

Still, this choice allows Paulette to become the unfettered id of all <\/em>our conformist impulses. Everyone has an impulse to smooth ourselves into acceptable forms. But Paulette\u2019s actions, if not his words, offer an alternate lifestyle: his jagged edges, oddball quirks, and sometimes quiet desperation make him (and us) infinitely more compelling. Long after the show\u2019s \u201cplot\u201d has petered out, you\u2019ll remember Maseda\u2019s impressive performance. You\u2019ll laugh at his absurdity, but you might want to emulate his commitment to trying again and again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cBe Good\u201d with Paulette<\/em><\/strong>
\nSolo character comedy by Daniel Maseda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Running Time: 45 minutes<\/strong>
\nDates and Times:<\/strong><\/p>\n