Original Illustration: Bret Schlesinger
"It seems to me you're an impossibility; you shouldn't even exist!" exclaims a young writer to the play's leading lady, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a sixty-year old transvestite running an East German furniture museum from World War II to 2002. The "writer" in the play is its author, Doug Wright, who visited her museum in the early nineties. He asks to do a series of interviews with her saying, "I am impressed by the mere fact of your survival. I grew up gay in the Bible Belt. I can only begin to imagine what it must have been like during the Third Reich, the Nazis and then the Communists." She gives her consent and history (and this play) is made.
The play is brilliant in its honesty. Doug Wright is careful not to let his own politics cloud Charlotte's story, which is difficult, given the poignant subject matter. Charlotte's story is not black and white, as Wright would have liked when he started this project. The plot thickens at the revelation that Charlotte worked as an informant for the Stasi, the East German Secret Police. As the character of Doug Wright learns about this involvement, we are also witness to the writer Doug Wright contemplating how to present this dramatically. The solution that was chosen was to dramatize what he knew to be true: his interviews. When Wright's own politics come into play, it is only spoken through his character-counterpart never through Charlotte's voice or the action of the play.
The person who brings Charlotte von Mahlsdorf and Doug Wright's voice to life is Jefferson Mays. Mays deftly maneuvers from one character to the next, each complete into itself and independent of the others. In dialogue he will have a conversation with two other characters and will have you believe that there are actually three bodies seated around the table. With this same magic at one point a book was passed between two characters thirty years apart. I had to blink my eyes to remember there was just one man and barely a set of which to speak.
Moisés Kaufman (Director) crafts this piece into a quiet intensity that the story deserves. Too often one-actor shows are driven at a breakneck speed, trying to impress the audience with the quantity of scenes and characters that can be played by one man in two hours. Kaufman, instead of speeding through a wide breadth of theatrics, dives into a deep solidity of story. The show is slow-paced but gripping; I was astounded when at intermission I realized that we had already spent a full hour in Charlotte's museum.
A trio of amazing designers add more depth to an already deeply layered show. Although Mays does an amazing job at creating a theatrical illusion of character, space, and time, Andre J. Pluess' sound design and lighting solidifies the illusion into a theatrical reality. The basic set appears to be just a back wall of a room, but as the light pierces the wall it is revealed to be a scrim through which a wall of furniture is seen. We soon learn that this is Charlotte's museum, and without ever moving the wall is transformed scene-by-scene into a wall of gramophones, then a wall of clocks, a wall of lamps, and then unbelievably into individual, specific rooms within the museum.
Where the production falls short in its brilliance is a lack of dramatic arc. The show's theme is one of survival, in particular the survival of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. While creating a beautiful character study of this woman, there is never any amount of dramatic tension. We know from the beginning of the play that she has already survived. Since her survival is never a question, the script does not make you want to care for this character. The success of the show therefore hinges on each individual's interest in the subject matter. Many people will be disappointed, but with an open mind there will be something in Charlotte's story that can touch each of our lives.
I Am My Own Wife , directed by Moisés Kaufman
Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 49th Street
Open-Ended Run
Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8pm; Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2pm
Tickets are $61.25–$86.25 thru Telecharge at 212–239–6200 or 800–432–7250