You can learn a lot about a character by how they enter a room. In “Be Good” with Paulette, now playing at DC’s District Fringe Festival, the title character’s entrance is utterly ridiculous. The mustachioed man, Paulette (brilliantly performed by the show’s playwright, Daniel Maseda), knocks on the door of the theater, setting up the audience for a knock-knock joke. However, Paulette can’t help himself, interrupting the audience and guiding us to then ask “Whom?” and then “Whomsoever it may be today?” This interaction is the entire character: fastidiously presented and completely sincere, but technically incorrect and hilarious to watch.
What follows is a cavalcade of increasingly silly audience interactions. Paulette asks if he’s overstayed his welcome, curious as to how this room is not the Notebook Society. He asks audience members their jobs — when one person responded that she was a “fundraiser,” he responded loudly, “Ah! An arsonist!” 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, “Can I make profound eye witness to your eyes for just three seconds?” you realize this isn’t the preamble to the show, this is the show.
Maseda has created a fascinating theatrical space, brimming with details while formally abstract. The show is not plot-heavy: Paulette’s attempt to get onto the stage is its own odyssey, and taking off his sweater becomes a nearly bureaucratic process. Maseda also doesn’t burden Paulette with some tragic backstory or psychoanalysis. All we have is Paulette’s 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 — until our mutual ridiculousness forms a bond of respect, but also a simmering sense of loss.
It’s hard to track when, exactly, this sense of loss arrives. Without indulging in the analysis that Maseda resists, it’s clear that Paulette is obsessed with always behaving correctly in every social interaction — 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’s 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’s outfit, which is how so many of us feel every day.
Maseda’s working in a tradition of comedians confronting polite society but also society itself, including Oscar Wilde and Nathan Fielder. Occasionally, I wished “Be Good!” 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’s hard to know exactly what world Paulette seeks to assimilate.
Still, this choice allows Paulette to become the unfettered id of all our conformist impulses. Everyone has an impulse to smooth ourselves into acceptable forms. But Paulette’s 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’s “plot” has petered out, you’ll remember Maseda’s impressive performance. You’ll laugh at his absurdity, but you might want to emulate his commitment to trying again and again.
“Be Good” with Paulette
Solo character comedy by Daniel Maseda
Running Time: 45 minutes
Dates and Times:
- Saturday, July 19, 8:45p
- Friday, July 25, 6:15p
Venue: Phoenix – UDC Lecture Hall (44A03)
Tickets: $15
More Info and Tickets: “Be Good” with Paulette
Genre: Solo performance, character comedy
Written and performed by Daniel Maseda
The complete 2025 District Fringe Festival schedule is online here.
The 2025 District Fringe Festival program is online here.
