In her new one-woman show The Day My Sugar Daddy Dumped Me, Becky Goodman talks and sings about her relationships with older men, particularly married ones. The expanded version of the show includes her experience as a sugar baby for a surprisingly sweet man called Sal, and the surprising connection that made last year’s show at ZOO Playground possible.
We have to start with the elephant in the room.
Oh my God.
Halfway through your show, you are dressed as a vagina. You rap a song called ‘Clit’, which includes you shouting the word ‘clit’ several times.
Aggressively.
During this song at today’s performance, a grandmother and her- I’m going to say maybe nine year old granddaughter come in and sit down. What was going on in your head at that moment?
I was like, should I stop? I tried to tell them. They came in at a moment in the song where I could say, no, this is not child appropriate. Please. You need- Oh, I hope you’re leaving the room. And then they slowly sat down and I said, no, you need to exit. And I just continued with the song because I was like, well, you know, maybe they thought that was part of the song. They thought my looking at them directly and saying, “you guys need to go, this is not age appropriate, if she asks, I’m a hot dog” was part of the song.
There’s something kind of magical and Fringey about that.
Yeah. I mean, I will never forget it.
Have you had any other fringe moment that are like that?
It’s free fringe, so people just walk in. Every other show has been like at least 11 or 12 people, like every other show, has been like a great crowd. Mostly young women, everybody’s vibe. But that was the strangest show I’ve had so far. So that’s a memory. The other two people in the audience were great.
Small audiences are also very Fringey, and you’re good at learning people’s names and doing a bit of crowd work during your show. Does that help with your own comfort level when there are smaller audiences?
It kind of throws them off guard. Because my show is very in your face, but if you if you address someone by name, it closes the gap of distance between you. It does help to just create an immediate sort of like, listen, we’re all in this together. And it helps me to feel like I can enter there, because sometimes they’re reluctant to like, enter into the space of this weird comedy that I do. But if you break the ice and you’re like, hey, I know your name, they sort of have to participate, you know?
You brought a shorter version of this show to last year’s Fringe. Most of the new material is about Sal, the sugar daddy for whom the show is named.
Sal wasn’t mentioned last time because he had he had just given me that money that I talk about this [version of the] show. He gave me like $16,000, like a month before, two months before I came to Fringe [last year]. And that was the only reason I could pay for the Airbnb and pay to rent out the ZOO venue. Like, literally the only reason I could afford it was because of Sal.
What made you decide to add on to the end of the original show, adding in your experiences with your sugar daddy, rather than inflate it from the inside of what was already there?
I think last year at the end… I wanted to try to forgive myself, but then afterwards, I still had sex with married men. I was still doing my pattern. I still had sex with married man after that show. And then Sal came along and he sort of like, shook me out of this habit I formed. And I was like, this is just…it’s such a crazy story. I couldn’t not write it. And it felt like a much more natural bookend to the rest of the show.
There are so many different levels of sincerity in the show. You’re very open about your experiences in the beginning, but then towards the end there is a new type of vulnerability and openness that feels different.
The first stuff is a little distant. It feels like me telling a friend about what is happening. And I’ve been doing that part of the show for a while now; it’s not hard to tap into the emotion, but I’m a little more separate from that. I want it to be a story that people can feel comfortable laughing at and also being upset by at the same time. I almost think it’s more just storytelling, explaining a relationship, trying to embody his character. I don’t know.
Have any of the men you mention ever seen the show?
I don’t think anybody’s ever seen it. Oh, maybe one of them. I don’t think Sal will find out about it because he doesn’t get out much. And I thought about telling him, “hey, I’m going to do this show. And I want you to know I’ve changed everything. Like, I really respect you.” I wonder if I should tell him, because I don’t want him to feel like I was just using him for material, you know? Because if you see that I’m doing the show, you might think, “oh, well, what a crazy story and she just used that guy”. But if you come and see the show and sit through it, you understand. You know, he’s a very pivotal moment in my life that follows the different toxic chapters. I decided it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. And I hope he understands. I would never use him.
Who is your comedic inspiration?
I have to mention Nina Conti. I coincidentally played guitar for her in New York two years ago, at Soho Theater in New York City. My friend linked us up, and then I kept playing with her, and we developed a working relationship and then a friendship. And she has been such an inspiration as a woman who has made it in comedy, doing something weird and different and sexual. She’s done a lot of different things.
What are your hopes for the rest of the Fringe?
I’ve been really, very set about trying to be happy and just and present day to day because… Yeah, I would love for someone to go see the show and be like, “whoa, this is amazing, let me get you an agent,” or “I am an agent and I want to represent you.” It would be so awesome if something like that happened. But I don’t want to hope for it because that does get in the way of enjoying the experience for me. So I just hope every day is a good day. And like, today, I was like, okay, maybe no one shows up. That’s okay. I’m glad I went through the experience last year of having nobody show up multiple times and having there be three people in the audience multiple times, because that makes it easier to deal with it and just enjoy the moment.
Becky Goodman: The Day My Sugar Daddy Dumped Me is at PBH’S Free Fringe at Brewdog Doghouse Hotel at 17:00 Aug 15-20, 22-25.
Erin Murray Quinlan is an American playwright, amateur beekeeper, and proud confirmed solver of Cain’s Jawbone. Her full credits can be found at erinmurrayquinlan.com.
