Artist Becky Bondurant has a long background as a writer. But like many of us, the pandemic inspired her to explore new projects. For some, that project was mastering the perfect sourdough boule (a respectable goal, to be clear). For Bondurant, it was the art of the monologue. After discovering that monologist Mike Daisey was offering storytelling classes, she signed up. That decision ultimately culminated in her first one-woman show, “Penis Envy”—a performance that wraps her journey through life and motherhood in a cellophane layer of Freudian psychoanalysis.

“Penis Envy” will be one of several live performances at the Richmond Fringe Festival, a celebration of fringe art running from April 12 through 14 and featuring immersive events like cabaret performances, dance parties, and more. Works will be presented across the city in locations including the Shafer Street Playhouse, Révéler, and Gold Lion Community Café, where Bondurant’s show will take place.

Through a series of personal anecdotes and scenes, “Penis Envy” explores Bondurant’s internalized ideas about gender and power, which were brought to the forefront of her mind after the birth of her daughter—and the first election of President Donald Trump, which took place just seven days later.

A high- and lowbrow mix of philosophy and raunchy humor, the show takes its name from the Freudian theory of penis envy, which asserts that a major part of female psychosexual development is the moment when young girls realize they do not have a penis and experience significant distress as a result. While it may have been elusive during Freud’s time, the subtext of the theory seems much more blatant today: penis equals power, because a human form with a penis is understood by everyone—even children—as the most complete human form.

Fittingly, this concept sets the stage for Bondurant to explore her relationship with her body throughout her life and confront her internalized misogyny, which began as early as her childhood experience of looking at a classroom poster of United States presidents and coming to the realization that our country’s power structures have long been dominated by men.

“In a way, I’m doing a little psychoanalysis on myself with the aim of trying to make myself a better person for my children, and translating that into art,” she says. “That’s really what psychoanalysis was about, taking feelings that were repressed in the subconscious and pulling them up to the conscious mind… Being aware of [internalized misogyny] isn’t enough. We have to do the work of dismantling our own defense mechanisms.”

Another key theme of the show shines a spotlight on Bondurant’s thoughts on motherhood, her relationship with her daughter in particular, and the unique aspects of the mother-daughter relationship.

“I think there’s a lot built into raising children that is influenced by gender—it’s hard to suss out what is biological, what is individual, and what is sort of the superego, cultural influences,” she says. “Mothers in particular are subject to such a harsh view from the outside. Speaking publicly about my failures and allowing myself to be honest about it was hard.”

This aspect of the show draws a Freudian parallel to Sigmund Freud’s unique relationship with his daughter, Anna Freud. The two lived through a fascist regime together, eventually fleeing Austria after the Nazi annexation, and Anna became a major contributor to the field of psychoanalysis in her own right. Her work focused on ego psychology, developing concepts that still play a prominent role in psychology today. In addition to building the foundation of child psychoanalysis, she solidified the ideas of defense mechanisms such as projection, denial, and regression—all things designed to protect ourselves from anxiety and difficult feelings about ourselves and others.

“When I started as an artist, there was a lot of myself that looked toward patriarchal models to try to define what I thought being a successful or a good artist meant,” she notes. “Unpacking a lot of my internalized misogyny has freed me to understand why that is. I was reading about this relationship between Anna and her father, and I think i see potentially a similar arc, where she is trying to reconcile her own desire to follow in her father’s footsteps and impress him, and at the same time, carve out a space for herself as a woman in a field dominated by men.”

While critiques and improvements of all psychological theories are inevitable, both members of the Freud family touched on a principle that appears to ring true over time: The stories we tell, no matter how close to or far away from reality, tell us about ourselves. With “Penis Envy,” Bondurant hopes to encourage her audience to look more closely at their own outlook by leading by example.

The Richmond Fringe Festival will run from April 12—14, and “Penis Envy” will be performed at Gold Lion Community Café on Saturday, April 12 at 1 p.m. and Sunday, April 13 at 5:30 p.m. Ages 18 and up. Tickets are available here.