"I Am My Own Wife" Theater: Lyceum Theatre Location: 149 W. 45 St., NYC Starts: December 03, 2003 Presented by: Delphi Productions in association with Playwrights Horizons

Whether Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's story as told by Doug Wright in "I Am My Own Wife" is true or not, this one-man play that has moved from Playwrights Horizons to Broadway is riveting theatre.

Not only does Jefferson Mays give possibly the most memorable performance of the season as over 40 different characters, but the structure of the play is original, challenging, and involving.

In August 1992, the playwright encountered the East German transvestite, who had survived the Nazi takeover and the Communist regime that followed, and he remained in touch with her until her death in 2002. The play is both his investigation into her story and his interviews, in which Charlotte narrates her version. Mays brilliantly and convincingly plays both sexes, including the playwright and Charlotte. As directed by Moises Kaufman, there is not a dull second in the entire play, which is structured as a series of revelations.

Born Lothar Berfelde, she transforms herself into "Charlotte von Mahlsdorf," proprietor of the Grunderzeit Museum, her 100-year-old collection of furniture, gramophones, records, and clocks dating from 1890-1900. Hailed as a heroine after the fall of the Berlin Wall, she is suddenly infamous again when her East German secret police file is released in the early '90s, making her out to be a police informer. What is the truth?

The clever costume by Janice Pytel allows Mays to become both men and women in the blink of an eye. When the play begins, we see a room in the East German museum. Later, when Charlotte begins to describe her collection, the lights reveal a wall of row upon row of antiques. With Derek McLane's set dazzlingly lit by David Lander, the moment is a coup de theatre. However, there are many such moments in "I Am My Own Wife."