TWO REVIEWS OF I AM MY OWN WIFE

Jerry Kraft
www.SeattleActor.com

Over on the North Olympic Peninsula, half-way between the Kingston ferry terminal and Port Townsend, there is a tiny community called Chimicum. The sanctuary of a lovely old church has been converted into a theatre and there The Paradise Theatre School is currently presenting an impressive and quietly moving production of “I Am My Own Wife”. This one-person show tells the story of a German transvestite who survived both the Nazis and the East-German Secret Police, the Stasi.

A truly idiosyncratic individual, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (nee Lothar Berfelde) collected archaic recording devices (Victrolas, Edison disks, etc.), late 19th Century furniture, and memories of the cost of surviving in repressive regimes where a man wearing a black dress and pearls was allowed to simply imprison herself (she preferred the female pronoun) in the home which she made into a museum. As the playwright Doug Wright (himself a character in the play) says, “She doesn't live in a museum, she is a museum.”

Charlotte realized as a child, when she first put on a dress, that she was intended to dress as a female and, while she always insisted on being treated as a woman, made no effort to disguise her male face. Awarded a medal for her courage she may also have been ethically compromised, possibly collaborating with the Stasi in ways and to an extent that may never be fully exposed. It is part of the contradiction of her story, an element of the invention which each of us brings to our own stories, and it only makes the character more intriguing, more complex and compelling.

Wright has constructed this play with multiple characters, more than thirty, all played by a single actor. That sort of tour-de-force requires that the performance be very good or the entire show will fail utterly. Good news here. Chris Hawley does an excellent job technically in differentiating the characters and moving crisply between accents and even languages. He's even better at making Charlotte a fully rounded, dignified and distinctive individual who may have created a world of very limited parameter, but within which she is able to live an uncompromised and self-actualized life. We appreciate how the things she values, the music machines, the furniture, the men in her life, can express her values and her experience. Our proximity to the stage enhances the immediacy of Charlotte. Mr. Hawley fully inhabits this playing space and his presence, his sense of possession allows us to feel that this really is the world in which Charlotte lives, and also that we are indeed guests in her place, curious explorers of her history.

Pattie Miles Van Beuzekom directed this production with great subtlety and beautifully placed emphasis. The action never feels like it's being driven by the director, but always by the text and the characters. She had remarkable insight into how and when to let Mr. Hawley reveal more or less of Charlotte than Charlotte herself might have chosen, and that makes the discovery of multiple layers of character another pleasure for the audience. The action was brisk at the same time that Charlotte clearly set a pace for telling her own story that was deliberate and never rushed. Ultimately, Ms. Van Beuzekom invisibly guided Mr. Hawley to the creation of a unique and dramatically riveting human being, one who was truly distinctive, truly unforgettable to everyone who ever encountered her.

“I Am My Own Wife” was an unexpected hit on Broadway in 2004 after great success Off-Broadway. It may seem like a most unlikely choice for such a rural audience, but that makes the same kind of mistaken assumptions about this community as the public made toward Charlotte: that there was something too insignificant or eccentric about this person's story to be relevant or of consequence. This excellent performance was proof that quality work will find an audience anywhere, and that in bringing us to a better understanding of someone we might otherwise have never known is one of the highest callings of the stage. Paradise Theatre School may be a fair distance from downtown, but everything about their work is first-rate, uptown theatre.



Hawley shines in 'I Am My Own Wife' at Paradise

By Kathie Meyer, Leader Arts Editor

Full disclosure: The actor in the solo performance play "I Am My Own Wife," Chris Hawley, is one of my coworkers here at The Leader. Believe me anyway when I say he is superb in this show.

I promise that I'm not biased or coerced in any way to write a favorable review. But if you are still suspicious of my opinion, then I offer you the full-house standing ovation Hawley received after the Saturday, Nov. 1 performance as proof that it's not just I who thinks so.

Hawley portrays an astonishing 35 characters in this production. The main character is the real-life Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, a German citizen born in 1928, who lived her adult life openly as a transvestite in Soviet-governed East Berlin in a home filled with antiques from Germany's Gründerzeit period. (Beginning in 1871, Gründerzeit was an era marked by Germany's advances in science and industry and thriving middle class.) Her amazing story is told by herself and others who passed through her life, including an antique dealer/companion whom she might have betrayed.

In an interesting twist, the playwright, Doug Wright, also inserts himself into the story to tell how he came to meet Charlotte, about their relationship, and his quest for the truth in the face of conflicting source material. It is a tale full of revelations, as rich as the myriad antiques Von Mahlsdorf protected and preserved throughout her lifetime.

A local actor who has performed in Port Townsend for decades, since he was a young boy, Hawley has nothing to prove by taking this role. His reputation is already outstanding. How great it is then that he agreed to do the work required of this piece, because his labor has paid off handsomely. The character transitions were as smooth as glass. At one point, he was turned away from me and yet I could tell he had changed characters just by the way he was walking.

Director Pattie Miles Van Beuzekom has put a deep notch in her belt with this show. She keeps Charlotte and the rest of the gang moving about, making the best use of the stage that is open on three sides to the audience. Hawley has plenty of stage business without making his actions seem contrived, and the use of dollhouse miniatures to convey larger antique furniture pieces was brilliant. The set, lighting and sound set the mood so well I really did feel as if I were descending into a basement full of treasures.

Still think I might be biased? At intermission, a new member of the community with a strong theater background told me she'd seen the play in Los Angeles, and this production was every bit as good as that one. She seemed a little surprised.

Yet a bit of big-city snobbery is preferable to the response of a person who saw the show's poster in Port Hadlock QFC and called the theater to ask, "Don't you think that's a little weird?"

"What do you mean?" askedVan Beuzekom.

The caller responded, "Can't you keep that kind of thing in Port Townsend where it belongs?"

No, thank heaven, she can't. Praise the Paradise for taking risks.

If you're looking for some kind of freak show about a man dressing in women's clothing, you'll be disappointed. If you're looking for a sumptuous, intriguing and, at times, humorous story told in exemplary fashion with top-notch acting, this "record of living, of lives" is just the ticket.

"I Am My Own Wife" plays at 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 22, with pay-what-you-can night on Thursday, Nov. 6. A 2 p.m. matinee is set for Saturday, Nov. 22. Tickets, $10, are available only at www.brownpapertickets.com or The Food Co-op, 414 Kearney.

This play contains adult themes of a sexual nature, and some character depictions might frighten young audience members.