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Fri, May. 06, 2005
One-man `wife'SOLO SHOW REVEALS TRANSVESTITE'S LIFE OF STATE OPPRESSION, PERSONAL OBSESSIONBy Karen D'Souza Nineteenth-century antiquities seem to beckon from the set at San Francisco's Curran Theater. Elegantly horned gramophones, baroque chests of drawers, gilded mirrors, Victrolas, grandfather clocks -- one seems more ornate than the last as the eye revels in these talismans of the past, all lovingly preserved, obsessively arranged. And more unusual than any is the owner of this museum, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a keeper of history who is herself an artifact, a rare and beautiful creature we can observe but never truly understand. ``I Am My Own Wife,'' the Pulitzer-winning solo show written by Doug Wright, scatters the mists that cloud this real-life 20th-century enigma, a transvestite who endured first the Nazis and then the Stasi and went on to run the last surviving Weimar cabaret in Germany. Her black-windowed basement became a sanctuary for ``deviants'' in a time of brutality and repression, a time when most ran scared or made bargains with the devil. Wright, heretofore best known for ``Quills,'' takes us along as he discovers Charlotte running the museum that her house has become, a repository for all the old and precious things that society so recklessly discards. A gay man who grew up stifled in the Bible Belt, Wright feels nothing but awe and pride when he first hears Charlotte's story. Only later does he learn that even heroes have their dark hours, their hidden truths. The playwright undercuts the power of the narrative with too many detours into his own creative process, his documentarian approach to drama. But Charlotte's saga remains endlessly provocative, a breathless World War II intrigue that morphs into a battle of identity politics. Astutely directed by Moises Kaufman, whose skill with oral-history projects has been honed on ``Gross Indecency'' and ``The Laramie Project,'' ``I Am My Own Wife'' rivets despite its stitched-together quality. And even though the play's seams show a bit jarringly on the page, there is no actor out there who can make a text sing like Jefferson Mays. He won a Tony for his solo turn in this show, but that doesn't begin to describe the force of his alchemy. Mays runs through more than 40 characters, from Charlotte and the playwright to Nazi storm troopers and modern day neo-Nazi thugs. Clad always in the same black housedress with a single string of pearls around his neck, he flows from one identity to another with liquid transformations. It's the perfect marriage of actor and role, a performance that reminds you what acting can be. The violent rage in Charlotte's father's face gives way fluidly to Charlotte's own ladylike bearing, the piercing light in her eyes, the look of one who survives. No matter what befalls her, Charlotte maintains an air of delicacy and detachment, saving up her passion for the real love of her life, her pieces of furniture. As she puts it, in the poetry of imperfect translation, she ``becomes'' them. One by one, they take their places on the wall and stand sentry to her life, to history. ``I Am My Own Wife'' lets us dwell in the presence of those relics, if only for a brief moment, to bask in the secrets of the past. `I Am My Own Wife' By Doug Wright The upshot: A consummate actor meets a incomparable character in this true-life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a man who dressed like a woman but loved only the past, through two of the most oppressive regimes in world history. Where: Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St. San Francisco When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays Through: May 29 Running time: Just under 2 hours, with intermission Tickets: $40-$72 Call: (415) 512-7770, or see www.bestofbroadway-sf.com # # # # # |
