|
German cross-dresser tells fascinating story
I Am My Own Wife
At The Playhouse until April 1
Tickets: 604-873-3311
Reviewed by Jo Ledingham
It's no wonder American playwright Doug Wright, a gay man, was intrigued and charmed by real-life Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berfelde in 1928 in a suburb of Berlin. Berfelde survived the Nazis and, later, the Stasi (East German secret police), not in spite of but perhaps because he was such an eccentric, cross-dressing oddity. As an adult, he took the name Charlotte von Mahlsdorf; he became "she" and a transvestite hero of sorts.
Wright heard about legendary Charlotte after his friend John Marks, an American journalist stationed in East Berlin, visited the Grnderzeit Museum, an extensive collection of furniture and artifacts from the Grnderzeit Period ("the gay '90s," Charlotte comments with a knowing little smile). During the bombing and forced evacuations, she had been salvaging "stuff"-furniture, clocks, antique gramophones, keys-and eventually, after restoring an old mansion, she opened her museum. The complete furnishings of a cabaret that had been the hangout for lesbians, gays, artists and intellectuals was transported and hidden in the museum basement where it once again became a gathering place-right under the noses of the homophobic Communists.
Wright was onto the story in a flash, requesting a grant, flying to Berlin and taping hours and hours of conversations with Charlotte over Kaffee und Kuchen.
I Am My Own Wife is the product and it's not so much a play as it is a good story. Actor Tom Rooney, in some three dozen roles including the playwright himself, charms us the way Charlotte must have charmedWright. In a plain black dress and stockings, sturdy shoes and a double strand of pearls, Rooney is almost prim. No makeup, no wig. With a heavy and very decent German accent, Rooney speaks precisely; when a German word or phrase is necessary, Rooney (as Charlotte) explains it to us-just as Charlotte would have done for the playwright. It's an engaging performance by Rooney; we warm to Charlotte partly because we are captivated by the performer. Charlotte also has a slow, sly sense of humour, and Rooney has a winning way of pursing his lips, turning his gaze away, fondling his pearls and saying "Hmmm" when the playwright's questions come too close to the mark.
Whether Charlotte was a homosexual is never really addressed-nor do we care. She tells the playwright that on her way to a proposed rendezvous for a little S&M, she passed an antique shop, went in and blew off the date. Clearly she loved antiques more than men.
When some files surface, incriminating Charlotte in black market activity and collaboration with the Stasi, the playwright is uncertain how to proceed. In this, as in all biographies, we learn almost as much about the biographer as we do about his subject. Wright wants to believe that Charlotte was innocent of the charges, but he allows that they may, indeed, be true. What is a biographer to do?
Set designer John Ferguson offers what, at least initially, is a simple set: an elegant white door and frame behind which is a floor-to-ceiling black scrim. Behind that, we can just make out half a dozen white casement windows. In front of the scrim, at centre stage, is a small, dollhouse size replica of Charlotte's museum. Inside are tiny pieces of furniture that she, modestly seated on the floor, carefully pulls out and describes to us.
Michael Shamata directs with a delicate but sure hand and Rooney wins our hearts. But the set designer leaves us with a last, gorgeous image that I will leave for you to discover. Under Alan Brodie's lighting, it's one of those effects that can only be done on stage and one that keeps us coming to the theatre. It's so unforgettably beautiful you want to stay for a while to savour it.
published on 03/24/2006
|
