What are People Saying About it?

Key Quotes from Reviews of the CATCO Production:

"beautifully staged and brilliantly performed"

"will surely rank as one of the year's best performances"

"touching and amusing"

"mesmerizing"

"It's a must-see"

--Michael Grossberg, The Columbus Dispatch (click here to read the  entire review)

Key Quotes from Reviews of Other Productions of this Play::

“The most exquisite offering on Broadway... Nothing short of breathtaking. A terrific story. ...both moving and intellectually absorbing.”
--New York Times

“[A] rich, riveting and thrilling mystery”
--Newsday

“Astonishing and extraordinary”
--Daily News

“Don’t even think of missing it”
--The Washington Post

"...saucy, sagacious, entirely fascinating solo play
--Village Voice

“This show deserves every prize there is”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Vibrant, vital and fascinating”
—USA Today

“Brilliant”
—The New Yorker

“A play of heart-stopping beauty”
—The Journal News

"I AM MY OWN WIFE revels in a particular time and place, but it is more than a historical document. The play is a vivid portrait of a unique person whose ability to endure has been turned into a highly theatrical journey."
—Associated Press

"…riveting theatre…the structure of the play is original, challenging, and involving." —BackStage

"A truly remarkable experience in the theatre, I AM MY OWN WIFE is a must-see…an experience that is intellectual, theatrical, funny, and poignant…the integrity of his writing provokes us to think, it teaches us a history we never knew we had, and without forgiveness and sentiment unravels the story of one life."
—NYTheatre.com

Who’s the Playwright?

DOUG WRIGHT is from Dallas Texas, and holds degrees from Yale and the New York University. His book for the Broadway musical Grey Gardens earned him Tony and Drama Desk nominations. I am My Own Wife, which premiered at Playwright's Horizons in 2003 won the Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award, a GLAAD Media Award, an OCC Award, a Drama League Award and a Lucille Lortel Award. His play Quills won the Obie Award in 1995, and he received Best Picture by the National Board of Review and was nominated for three Academy Awards for the screen adaptation. Other plays include Unwrap Your Candy, The Stonewater Rapture, Watbanaland, and Interrogating the Nude. Mr. Wright received the Tolerance Prize from the Kulturforum Europa and was cited by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for career achievement.

Play Notes

Some reflections on a unique life

The Berlin Wall stood as a barrier from East to West from 1961 until 1989. When it was torn down, a legacy of privation and brutality was confirmed. East Germans who had suffered first at the hands of the Nazis, then at the hands of Post World War Socialism needed to be nimble to survive. One of the unusual stories that emerged was of a man whose birth name was Lothar Berfelde. Lothar, or Lottchen as he affectionately became known, realized at an early age that he felt more at home living as a woman than as a man. Eventually he adopted the name of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf and lived his life as a woman.

It is easy to dismiss Charlotte as an oddity. Gender identification is entangled in the deepest biases of our social order. Boys should not play with dolls; girls should not be interested in trucks; and grown men should certainly not be obsessed with the furniture of an esoteric era of fussy furniture making, Charlotte was immune to these dictates and created her own construct for how she would live her life.

Charlotte adapted her interest in the furniture of the Grunderzeit era (late 19th Century) into an occupation as an assistant in a second hand furniture business. She was an avid collector of things—most notably gramophones and regulator clocks. During the shameful period of the evacuation of the Jewish population of Germany, Charlotte’s employer was involved in the cataloguing and resale of the goods, books and furniture of Jewish families.

It is easy to paint her as an opportunist, eager to make profit on the misfortunes of others. Upon closer examination there appears to be something deeper involved here. She seemed to recognize the connection we human creatures have with our possessions. Unable to save the victims, she was determined to honor their possessions and eventually created a museum that connected the historical dots from the 19th Century to the present.

In her autobiography with the same name as the play, she states unequivocally, “A human life, no matter how long it endures, is short. None of us are perfect, but we must have the courage to fight for justice, contend against injustice, and protect others from danger under any circumstance with all of our might, even at the risk of our lives.”

As you consider the implications of both the play and the life of this enduring individual, using the lens of that statement will help to unlock her mysteries. She was not perfect but she was most certainly brave as she faced the vicissitudes of life. The title of the play is a reflection on her individualism. When she was forty her mother inquired why she did not get married. Her response, “I am my own wife,” is a testament that she understood that she could depend only on herself.

--Steven C. Anderson, Artistic Director

Where Can I Find More Info?

Click here to read a Playbill interview with Doug Wright

Click here to read an article in the L.A. Times by Doug Wright