When she steps on the stage at The Tank on Aug. 2, Darwin Del Fabro channels Lili Elbe in one-woman show will be taking the next giant step in a lifelong artistic journey to define and express her authentic self. Darwin will be starring in “Lili/Darwin,” a one-woman show she wrote and which was inspired by a book she discovered as a 13-year-old, “Man into Woman” by Lili Elbe. Elbe was assigned male at birth and had the first recorded gender reassignment surgery in 1930. It would begin clarifying who the woman was that Darwin would become.
“I didn’t speak a word of English at that time, but the title really spoke to me,” Darwin explained. “That was my first contact with her. And even though at that time I didn’t know the person I was becoming, there was something [in Lili’s story] that moved me so much.
Darwin added: “Because I have been working with theater and art was always my escape, I thought, ‘Oh, this is just like a character that I like and a person that I’m really interested in.’ So, I started to research, and I created a two-person play in Brazil when I was 14, which is crazy to think about.”
As a young actor, Darwin went on to star in Brazilian productions of “Shrek the Musical,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and “The Wizard of Oz.” She moved to New York about 10 years ago and played in Shakespeare at Signature Theatre and The Tank.
Yet, she never lost her interest in Lili. After coming to New York, she translated her original play into English, and, she says, got in touch with her mentor, writer John Logan, who began an adaptation. Logan also cast Darwin in the 2022 horror film “They/Them,” which was set in a conversion camp and made the queer, non-binary, and trans characters the heroes — a breakthrough in the horror genre.
Darwin came out as trans in 2022 and took two years off to go through the transition process, which took a total of seven surgeries. She adds that Lili was always there with her throughout the process. Today, Darwin feels even closer to Lili.
“Lili transitioned later in life, too,” Darwin said.
The play has developed into a one-woman piece melding together the experiences of Lili and Darwin. Though their stories are separated by 95 years, although there are many things that have changed, Darwin said there are still many similarities, including their reliance on art to find themselves.
Lili wrote that “to become a woman is to become oneself,” and that has influenced Darwin’s transition.
“My name is Darwin, and I really believe in evolution,” she said. “We need to become better versions of ourselves and always keep evolving. I think because art and painting was so much in Lili’s life, she was always about the details. Once she decided that she wanted to become her true self, she started to craft and work on those details. So, when she says to be a woman is to create oneself, it means to shape the world into something beautiful.”
Throughout her transition, Darwin has never closed the door on the person that she once was. In her writing, she describes it as a process “from ‘he’ to ‘they’ to ‘she.’”
When asked about that part of her process, she said, “everyone has a different story about transition. I love the boy Darwin who was born in Rio and was fighting to be himself. Without his courage and, as I say in the play, his tenacity, there would not be the new me. He had this strange ability to dare to envision a life that was beyond mere survival.”
Darwin notes that the transition process is challenging physically and emotionally.
“We know the battles that we’re going to face,” she said. “We know how difficult it is. It’s only going to complicate our lives, but we still fight for our happiness. We still fight to be truthful to ourselves. And there’s so much power in that; I really think it’s beautiful. Now I feel I’m the woman I always meant to be, but I love the process, and I’m still learning a lot too.”
Darwin has faced all the challenges of transitioning with an open heart and a curious mind. She notes that she was helped by a supportive family, especially her father, and says that one of the biggest realizations is that she is also starting to see herself as beautiful, something she never dared previously.
She hopes that the messages of “Lili/Darwin” will go beyond just a story of one woman’s transition and speak to everyone who is on a journey of transformation and self-discovery — and inspire them be more authentically themselves. In short, “Lili/Darwin” is a deeply personal yet universally resonant story for anyone who, like Darwin, is still evolving.
“Lili/Darwin” | The Tank | 312 West 36th Street | Mon, Thurs-Sat 7 p.m. through August 22 | $33, $43 at The Tank
