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I Am My Own Wife
By special arrangement with
DELPHI PRODUCTIONS
At
The Goodman Theatre
www.GoodmanTheatre.org
170 N. Dearborn Street
Chicago, Il 60601
312-443-3800
Robert Falls: Artistic Director
Roche Schulfer: Executive Director
By Doug Wright
Starring Jefferson Mays
Director: Moises Kaufman
Associate Director: Susan Lyons
Set Design: Derek McLane
Costume Design: Janice Pytel
Lighting Design: David Lander
Original Music and Sound Design: Andre Pluess
Production Stage Manager: Nancy Harrington
Stage Manager: Joseph Drummond
Press: Cindy Bandle/Jennifer Dobby
Production Sponsor: The Women’s Board
of the Goodman Theatre
Individual Sponsor Partner: Shawn M. Donnelley
Susan Weinrebe
January 18, 2005 (See May 22, 2004 NY Review.) A borrowed lyric from Gilbert and Sullivan, “Things are seldom what they seem,” sums up the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf in the Goodman Theatre’s production of “I Am My Own Wife.”
Moving openly as a transvestite for much of her seven decades, Charlotte, née Lothar Berfelde, lived in Germany between a world war and the rise and demise of communism. Somehow surviving regimes designed to squash people such as she, Charlotte lived to tell her tale to Doug Wright who recorded the idiosyncrasies of her life.
Following his New York performance in the part, Jefferson Mays brings Charlotte to Chicago. There is a huge supporting cast that includes an abusive father, a mother in denial, a mentoring tante, her gruff friend Alfred whom she ultimately betrayed, Nazis, American soldiers, handlers in the secret police, gays, lesbians, the playwright, and many, many more participants in Charlotte’s life. They are all characterized by the singular Jefferson Mays who won a Tony for his part.
At first, the stage appears almost bare, minimally set as it is with a table, chairs, music cabinet, and cylinder player. However, behind what seems to be a wall at the back, level upon level of belongings are revealed. Charlotte rescued furniture, music players, clocks, and knick-knacks that others discarded. Everything had to be saved, “…as a record of living – of life.” This salvage of other households comprised the contents of her museum. There was even a rescued bar from the Weimar period for whose preservation she was later awarded the Order of Merit.
Costumed in a black dress, apron, tights, sensible shoes, and a headdress reminiscent of a nun’s latter day coif, Mr. Mays transforms himself in split-second transubstantiations from one character cameo to another. It is through the craft of acting that he lisps through an effeminately gay portrayal, flounces as an adolescent girl, clips his trans-Euro accented demands as one of Charlotte’s tormentors, or recreates the nuances of Charlotte’s self-effacing delivery. His body language conveys devastating takes of each incarnation.
What courage it must have taken for Charlotte to reveal her true self, a female in a male’s form at a time when the phrase “self-expression” had yet to be coined! In assuming the persona of a woman, she was, as a child, supported by her courageous Tante Louisa who herself, dressed as a man and felt she and Charlotte had been tricked by nature, each finding themselves in the wrong gender body.
Perhaps this early acceptance of Charlotte’s transvestism gave her the wherewithal to persevere through the travails of her life and times. Mr. Mays’ round-eyed, deadpan delivery indicated a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. In Charlotte’s case, this ability to make light of circumstances must have been be part of her survival mechanism. She was availing herself of the ironic opportunities her life presented to have everyone on.
When asked in her late 50’s if she wore make up she replied, “I don’t need it.” The objects in her museum dated between 1890 and 1900, “the ‘gay’ nineties,” she said. Why didn’t Charlotte have a radio among all the artifacts? “To hear Hitler better? No thank you!” When a gay bar was raided, “…the gays ran away – the lesbians stayed to fight!” All of these lines and many more drew laughs that were with Charlotte, not at her.
But what made Charlotte a subject worthy of memorializing in this Pulitzer and Tony-winning play? She was an original, a pioneer, and an icon. To the needfully underground homosexual community of her time and to those who, like her, were “sexual intermediaries,” she lived her life as she was. But in an arena larger than gender affiliation or affinity, it was, as Montaigne observed in general, her humanity that made Charlotte appealing as bearing, “the whole stamp of the human condition.
And what do we know about that condition? This is where truth and fable are not immediately discernable from each other. Charlotte’s telling of her story is just that, her version of the events of her life. It reads like an alphabet of human behavior as courageous to craven choices unfold in the play.
Did she really play her Edison cylinders so, “they will know I’m their friend,” as the Allies flew overhead? Was Charlotte her father’s murderer and did she escape from a juvenile prison during a bombing raid? What finances enabled her to make a museum of her house? To, “…be more clever than the snakes,” she gave information on a friend that sent him, rather than her to prison.
When the Nazis banned Jewish composers, Miss von Mahlsdorf glued made-up labels for “offending” records in order to preserve them. Later she steamed them off when the danger had passed. Like the Jews who were hunted out and murdered by the Nazis, she described herself as “wild game.” Yet, she lived on.
“Things are seldom what they seem.” The somberly dressed woman we see is really a man. Among the artifacts preserved in her museum is a bar nearly destroyed because it was a homosexual hangout. It exists in her basement, still a haven for gays and lesbians. She is a cultural model to many yet she betrays her friend to save herself. In the droplet of water, known as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a universe existed. She is a mirror held up before us in this mesmerizing production.
The Goodman Theatre is a gorgeous space of curved glass, metal and warm taupe. Floor length swoops of window seating and overlooking ledges for drinks on the second level invite mingling. Complimentary coat check, ample washrooms, books pertaining to the productions, and refreshments are easily accessible.
As I walked downstairs to the main floor I noticed a huge photograph of Charlotte that had been described in the play. Hung at eye level, the picture showed Charlotte when she was still known as Lothar, a beautiful young blond boy seated between two lion cubs nearly his size. He embraced these wild animals and was smiling. Charlotte could have fallen prey to the culture or the governments of her time, but she survived. It is the plight of her humanity that brings a varied audience to this play and makes “I Am My Own Wife” a story in which we can find a bit of ourselves.
Jefferson Mays in I Am My Own Wife
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
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