A dress for success
Performance fits like a glove in 'I Am My Own Wife'
By Evan Henerson
Theater Critic
She wears A plain black dress covered by an apron, sensible orthopedic shoes, a scarf and a short strand of pearls that never moves.
When she speaks, it's in heavily accented English, often with a "yes?" at the end, as if verifying that she has been heard and understood. The grin is shy, elliptical, the gaze opaque. She appears most comfortable amid a vast collection of antiques. In fact, before first addressing us, she rushes out and returns with a gramophone. She is a man who lives as a woman.
The character is Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, an East German transvestite of some renown. The player is Jefferson Mays, whose depiction of von Mahlsdorf in Doug Wright's solo play, "I Am My Own Wife," at the Wadsworth Theatre is as cryptic as it is exciting. How do you get a handle on a character so fluid, so happily and defiantly unknowable? One syllable, one gramophone note at a time.
Mays' much-celebrated performance, directed by Moises Kaufman, is remarkable for its establishment of distance and boundaries. With that Mona Lisa-like grin, the character's barely suppressed delight in her own uniqueness and an apparent willingness to lie openly and frequently, Mays' von Mahlsdorf may be playing us at the same time she's reeling us in. Impenetrability may be a dramatically exciting quality, but it can also drive a person from the theater wishing there was a documentary to pop into the DVD player. Who, finally, is this lady? A survivor, certainly. Beyond that, take your own guesses.
This much we know: Von Mahlsdorf managed to live - even flourish - in Berlin under both the Nazis and the Communists. An antiques dealer who held a gay salon in her basement, von Mahlsdorf (born Lothar Berfelde) was an informant for the East German police, the Stasi.
How much of a hero or traitor she was is open to speculation.
Playwright Wright - who has written himself into "I Am My Own
Wife" - clearly wants to, if not idealize von Mahlsdorf, then
certainly to celebrate her uniqueness.
That becomes problematic when von Mahlsdorf's elusiveness
results in betrayal - both to fellow antiques dealer Alfred
Kirschner and, ultimately, to the playwright himself.
Mays morphs through some 30 to 35 characters, enacting Stasi officers, journalists, U.S. soldiers and anyone else who circles into von Mahlsdorf's orbit. Using only a single costume change, the actor accomplishes his transformations through posture, facial expressions and an unparalleled series of voices. None of the personas seem in the least burlesqued or ill-fitting. And when he's Charlotte, the audience collectively seems to lean in more closely, as if afraid to miss a word.
Wright's own position in his narrative is more problematic. Yes, he conducted the series of interviews with von Mahlsdorf that led to "I Am My Own Wife's" narrative. Yes, he's clearly a man on a quest. Certainly he has found an exciting story to tell and - in Kaufman and Mays - the people to tell it. (The director - whose Tectonic theater company is responsible for plays about Oscar Wilde and Matthew Shepard - has a documentarian's affinity for his subjects, the more marginalized, the better.)
But intentions notwithstanding, this should never have been Wright's story, and the playwright's persona (effected by Mays with a drawl and an air of some slight anxiousness) often feels like an interloper at someone else's gala. A betrayal is coming; we see it on the horizon, but we never genuinely connect with the person - Wright - who is likely to get most significantly shafted.
Following workshops, a Broadway run and now a tour, the piece is likely done transforming. Should Hollywood come calling - as it did with the playwright's earlier work, "Quills," - here's hoping that Wright steps more deeply into the tale or removes himself completely.
Considering this is Charlotte von Mahlsdorf we're talking about, perhaps it would be better to leave the party entirely and let the lady have her spotlight. Thanks to Jefferson Mays, she has certainly earned it.
I AM MY OWN WIFE Our rating:
Where: Wadsworth Theatre, on the Veterans Administration
grounds, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., Building 226, Brentwood.
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 4 and
8:30 p.m.
Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through July 10.
Tickets: $34 to $85. Call (213) 365-3500.
In a nutshell: Enigmatic yet fascinating. An actor completely at
home in a role and a playwright trying to find his place.
---
Evan Henerson, (818) 713-3651 evan.henerson@dailynews.com
