WHEN INTROSPECTION FLATLINES:
DAVID ROUSSEVE’S BECOMING DADDY AF
IS MORE LIKE WTF

After more than twenty years away from full-length solo work, choreographer and storyteller David Roussève returns with Becoming Daddy AF, a 90-minute self-portrait presented by CAP UCLA that promises introspection but rarely delivers the emotional punch it’s built around. The premise is compelling — an acclaimed 65-year-old artist confronting love, aging, loss, and legacy — but the result feels oddly clinical, more like an annotated scrapbook than a living confession.

The set is barebones: a reading lamp, an armchair, projections across the back wall, and a few gentle shifts in light. These Roussève signatures (which I loved in his Stardust) create an intimate, Fringe-festival atmosphere — a stage stripped down to words, memory, and the body itself. There are moments when his movement reminds us why his company REALITY earned such renown: the economy of gesture, the grace still present in a well-toned frame. Yet too often, the dancing feels like punctuation rather than expression — accents on ideas rather than revelations from them.

Roussève speaks at length about his 26-year marriage to Conor McTeague, but we never quite know the man. We learn what he did, not who he was. That absence of personal texture makes the piece feel emotionally gated — Roussève’s either unwilling or unable to open the door fully. The stories are persuasive (he takes us back centuries in his family tree); the feeling behind them remains withheld. Whatever catharsis the show reaches for, it hovers just beyond reach.

What Becoming Daddy AF needs most is distance — not from its subject, but from its author. A strong outside director might have shaped its raw material into something cohesive, guided the pacing, and found the pulse beneath the intellectual scaffolding. Dramaturg Charlotte Brathwaite’s presence is credited, but the show still feels self-directed and self-contained, too protective of its creator to challenge him.

There’s undeniable courage in Roussève standing alone again — and plenty of artistry in how he builds an image or crafts a phrase (although the repetitive, folksy “Y’all”s  obliterated any gravitas)— but the performance itself feels unfinished, emotionally undercooked, and theatrically tentative. For all its ambition, Becoming Daddy AF ends up less a reckoning and more a rehearsal.

photos by Jason Williams

Becoming Daddy AF
David Roussève/REALITY
The Nimoy
presented by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance
reviewed on Friday October 17, 2024; ends on October 18
for more info, visit CAP UCLA