Theatre in Review: Lili/Darwin (The Tank)

	Darwin Del Fabro. Photo: Mari Eimas-Dietrich

Lili/Darwin is a solo piece about two women: Lili is Lili Ilse Elvenes, aka Lili Elbe, a Danish painter and one of the first subjects of gender reassignment surgery. This was in 1930, and, as you can imagine, her story is fascinating. As Einar Wegener, she was married to the illustrator Gerda Gottlieb, and they traveled Europe before landing in Paris, where Einar began to transition. The Oscar-winning film The Danish Girl, which frames Lili's complicated, often tormented journey in a series of glossy-chic bohemian settings -- the entire movie resembles a Vanity Fair layout -- doesn't begin to do it justice. Sadly, in real life, Lili had little opportunity to enjoy her new identity; she died following an attempted uterus transplant.

Darwin is Darwin Del Fabro, the writer and star of this piece, and her story may be equally fascinating, but, well, I can't tell you much about it because she is so vague about the details of her experience. Based on the text of Lili/Darwin, she is a Brazilian theatre artist who moved to New York and began exploring her feminine identity. But her storytelling method is best described as pointillist. A father and stepmother are mentioned in passing, but her relationships with them remain opaque. A date with "a divorced dad with kids" is quickly dismissed for treating her as a fantasy sex object. Does she have friends, lovers, or siblings? She doesn't say. What are her aims as a performer and writer? We never hear.

During Lili/Darwin's sixty-minute running time, Del Fabro shifts between Lili and herself, comparing and contrasting their experiences. This doesn't leave enough time for either narrative. In each case, the focus, intense and relentless, is on the speaker's feelings about herself as she gradually comes to embrace her female identity. But the language is so interior that neither personality comes to life. Both faced extraordinary challenges that required considerable strength of mind and will. In both cases, the theatre of social ostracism must have been terrifying. But neither Lili nor Darwin seems to live in a world populated by others. Gerda, Lili's companion of many years, is never mentioned. "I have lived alone since I was thirteen," Darwin says, in an eyebrow-raising statement about which one would like to know more. "I have faced so much -- survived so much," she adds. And that would be...?

The text features occasional flashes of specificity that grab one's attention. For example, Darwin is starkly honest about the pain she suffered from her surgery: "Not even the morphine -- sweet, numbing morphine -- could touch it." And, spending time in a rehab center for trans women, she comes to the bracing, if sketchily rendered, conclusion that, even at this late date in her personal story, she carries a certain transphobia inside her. But at this length and format, the stories of both Lili and Darwin aren't given the treatment and consideration they need.

Meghan Finn's direction has its puzzling features. Del Fabro is a larger-than-life presence with plenty of lung power, and it's unclear why she needs to be miked (especially in one of The Tank's tiny spaces). The director doesn't encourage the star to underplay, so moments that might be charming and amusing in a casual way are delivered with alarming force. Nor is it always clear who is speaking to us; Del Fabro could do more to distinguish Lili from Darwin.

In any case, Pete Betcher's simple production design effectively deploys two small stages to establish the dual-heroine concept; his calculated use of color washes adds visual interest, although sometimes they land, unflatteringly, on Del Fabro, who could use a followspot. The sound design makes good use of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor.

A work of heartfelt advocacy, Lili/Darwin may satisfy audience members hungry for affirmation on the issue of trans rights. (This appeared to be the case at the performance I attended.) But it's a frustrating piece, written from so deeply inside the author's experience that it leaves two gripping stories largely untold. Both Lili and Darwin deserve better. --David Barbour