Tuesday, October 27, 2009

I Am My Own Wife challenges B Street Audiences



Courtesy photo

A startling play, with a bravura performance by Greg Alexander, "I Am My Own Wife" thrills audiences as it initiates a new B3 series at Sacramento’s B Street Theatre. American playwright Doug Wright became fascinated by Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a male German transvestite who survived the Nazis and the Soviet takeover of East Germany. Wright sought him/her out as the focus of what was to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

Charlotte was a paradox who combined a childlike love of exquisitely carved objects and the toughness to murder her own father, a brutal Nazi. She and her friends faced imprisonment and even death, yet she protected herself by collaborating with the Stasis, East German secret police. Her final liberation came when she declared, “I am my own wife!”

With precise directing by David Pierini, Greg Alexander dazzles audiences as he plays 32 characters, mostly in the same costume.

For details and a review, go to http://villagelife.com/story.php?id=692.0.

No comments: