Mays shines; portrays own wife, 35 other folks

The bizarre, real life story of an in-the-open, East Berlin transvestite languishing first under the bloodlust of Nazism, later enduring the oppression of communism “I Am My Own Wife” is an award-winning play by Playwright Doug Wright, presented by Broadway in Boston and Clear Channel Entertainment at the Wilbur Theatre.

Doug Wright seized the idea for his 2004 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play when in 1990, a journalist-friend, John Marks, introduced him to Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf and the fascinating story of her life-caught-in-turmoil journey.

Mahlsdorf was born in 1928 as a boy named Nee Lothar Berfeld, son of a loving mother, who was desperate to shield him from a tyrannical father.

By age seven, Mahlsdorf discovered it gave him an inexplicable, transforming pleasure to slip into his mother’s clothing, and his journey began.

If life at home was not crazy enough, the boy had to negotiate the slow-burning hell of Germany at war.

In his hometown of Berlin, Mahlsdorf saw a frightening world, as Goebels ranted, urging book burnings as mobs smashed Jewish-shop windows, looting, setting stores up in flame.

At the height of Adolf Hitler’s death and destruction, Mahlsdorf’s mother gathered him, his brother and sister fled Berlin to escape to the Prussian countryside from both the grip of his brutalizing father and the Third Reich’s river of bloodshed.

There, the terrified boy’s cross-dressing lesbian aunt nurtured him, further cultivating his desire to wear woman’s clothing.

After Hitler’s death at the end of war, he returned with his family to his hometown, no longer Berfeld. He was now Mahlsdorf.

The final act of changing his identity and no longer accepted torment, he murdered his father.

As a teenager, he had worked at used furniture store, his became his passion as an adult on his own, leading him to create a house-museum filled with things like antique clocks, lamps, gramophones and furniture.

Jefferson Mays performs solo as Mahlsdorf while transitioning seamlessly into more than 35 different characters on stage.

It was stunning theatre delivered superbly in two acts by Mays, who must navigate, solely by himself, the difficult terrain of two, sometimes more,
characters in dynamic conversation; replying to, opposing, engaging one another without appearing trite and foolish.

Mays appears on stage in a shape-concealing, prim, black shirt-dress grounded by a pair of clunky-looking orthopedic shoes. A black kerchief covered Mays’ head
giving him a nun’s austere appearance far from that of a prancing drag queen.

No jewelry adorns his hands. Mays wore no earrings; only a tasteful strand of pearls circled his neck.

There was not a drop of make-up, neither to embellish his face nor to accentuate his intense eyes. Janice Pytel’s costume design was intentionally understated,
thus highly effective.

Mays portrayed Mahlsdorf without faux-femininity. The play was presented adroitly as a state of mind; serious and with sound judgment, not for cheap laughs.

Mays’ preparation had to be extraordinary. The challenge is that all 35 different characters beg for individual recognition and voice. The delivery of a
character’s voice must vary in combinations of quality, pitch, volume, tempo and rhythm. Moises Kaufman’s directions were sensitive and rich in
collective detail.

Mays’ characters range from Charlotte speaking English heavy with an East-German accent edged in guttural, hard pronunciations where V and Z sounds
dominate, then transitioning to the mellow southern drawl of an American journalist, to the threatening tone of a Stasi secret police, to Wright as himself
interviewing Mahlsdorf, then a nurse, a collector, and onward.

Mays honed his craft, reaching shades and nuances of human experience. He delivered roles with contrasting violent intensity checked by measured sensitivity.

Derek McLane handled these woody stage props by cramming but strategically placing them on huge, floor to ceiling, metal storage shelves; thus creating a
richly textured mosaic, a near-solid wall of antiques, giving the set design an appealing, imposing backdrop.

David Lander’s lighting design articulated the coordination of accent-lighting’s alternating focus only on clocks, only on gramophones then only on certain furniture, as different scenes required. Each light cast was tailor shaped to hi-light, the item’s exact contour, leaving other items to retain their presence, yet graciously recede into shadow.

The show was an immense theatrical-acting challenge and Mays gave a thrilling, unmatchable performance. It was a physically daunting, one-take routine, under
pressure in front of a live audience. No one was even listed in the Playbill as Mays’ understudy.

Had Tony Award-winning actor, not rushed off stage emotionally drained after three sustained, wildly enthusiastic standing ovations; the crowd would have
gladly stayed to give him six more.

Broadway in Boston has presented an extraordinary play. After the show leaves Boston, it heads for California, for running contiguous three weekend
engagements each in San Francisco and Los Angeles, then finishing in La Jolla Sept. 4.