IN ‘A MAN CALLED MOMMY,’ NOADIAH ECKMAN DELIVERS QUEER JOY ACROSS THE AISLE THE 40-MINUTE SOLO PERFORMANCE CONSISTS OF ECKMAN, TWO CHAIRS, AND A DEEPLY PERSONAL STORY ABOUT TRANSITION, FAMILY, AND LOVING ACROSS POLITICAL DIVIDES.

Jesus, Trump and the Little Mermaid Walk into a Bar: The True Story of a Man Called Mommy

For Noadiah Eckman, the problem begins with a line that is both comic and devastating: “My mom voted for Trump.”

That sentence opens Jesus, Trump & The Little Mermaid Walk into a Bar: The True Story of A Man Called Mommy, a 40-minute one-man show written and performed by Noadiah and coming to the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June. The show, performed at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theater, tells the story of Eckman’s transition, his relationship with his Fox News-watching mother, and the difficult praxis of loving family members whose politics can feel hostile to one’s own existence.

“It is personal,” Eckman told the Blade. “It’s about my family.”

But A Man Called Mommy is not simply a trauma narrative. Eckman describes the show as a fast-paced, comedic, and transformative story about pushing past binaries: red vs. blue, straight vs. gay, us vs. them. The show asks what it means to love someone without pretending the conflict does not exist.

“It’s secretly queer and spiritual,” he explained. “The bait [of the show] is how to love your enemy.”

Eckman transitioned later in life, shortly after the 2016 election. At the time, his children were 10 and 8. When he told them he was taking testosterone, their reaction was almost casual.

“They looked up from their Harry Potter books, and they were like, ‘Okay,’” he told the Blade. Eckman added that his children told him, “But we’re not calling you dad.”

The title A Man Called Mommy came from that moment. His girlfriend at the time responded, “I love that I’m dating a man called Mommy.” What began as a joke became a way to hold the complexity of his identity, his parenting, and his family.

At its center, the show explores the complicated relationship between a parent and child. “My transition was into manhood, and her transition was from life to death,” he said. “They’re going together.” The emotional material is heavy, but Eckman insists the show is fun.

He does not want the audience to feel trapped inside an open wound – a wound that many individuals in the LGBTQ+ community feel deeply. Instead, he wants the community to feel guided through something difficult and return to joy.

“I think the key for good art is that it comes from a healed place,” Eckman told the Blade. “I like to feel like I’m taking the audience somewhere.”

For Eckman, that “somewhere” is not a political agreement. In one scene, he watches Fox News with his mother. The point is not that she switches political parties. Rather, the point is that Eckman and his mother find peace within the noise.

“I love her out of it,” he said to the Blade. “It doesn’t mean she has to change her vote. But we get to a place of love and connection that’s very deep.”

As a Gen X person, Eckman sees his work as part of a longer lineage of survival, humor, and resistance. He points to the AIDS crisis, ACT UP, Reagan-era silence, marriage equality, and the younger generations now facing their own set of problems.

“I definitely think Gen Z’s gonna save us,” he said optimistically. “They’ve got the smarts to do it. They just need a little insight from Gen X.”

His show reaches beyond his own transition. Eckman is a trans man, his son is gay, and his children are Black. For him, the story is about the intersections of all identity categories – but without turning anyone into a main enemy.

“Everybody’s a little good and a little bad,” he explained. “There are no villains. There are no heroes. Everybody’s both.”

Performed with just Eckman and two chairs, A Man Called Mommy is intimate but also part of a larger body of solo performance work. Eckman said the show is a newer piece in a cohort of works he has been developing since 2018 from different sections of his memoir, A Man Called Mommy. Those include It’s Cat O’Clock Somewhere, about how he ended up with 30 cats; Home Wrecker Inc., about trying to break the habit of dating married women; and Home for the Holidays, about healing the past, future, and present at once. He also credits solo performance teachers Ann Randolph, Josh Townshend, and Martha Rynberg with helping shape the work.

For audiences, Eckman hopes the show offers more than 40 minutes of joy. He wants people to leave feeling that another way of living with one another is still possible.

“They’re going to have fun,” he said. “They’re going to see their life in a new way. They’re going to feel a sense of joy at the possibilities of truly loving everyone, and also truly loving ourselves.”Jesus, Trump & The Little Mermaid Walk into a Bar: The True Story of A Man Called Mommy runs June 7 at 7:30 p.m., June 13 at 11:35 a.m., and June 21 at 5 p.m. at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theater, 1125 N. McCadden Place.