I Am My Own Wife
Sep. 27th, 2006 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidI went to BTW's production of I Am My Own Wife (Doug Wright) last night (at the Zero Arrow theater, very convenient for me). It's a fairly intense one-man show.
The stage was set up simply, with an 'antique' desk and chair in one corner, the surface black with some white pattern near the corner of the desk. A ramp on one side lead up to a smaller space that had a phonograph on a table, and a white-with-black-decorations back to the stage. In other words, all black and white, matching the main character's outfit, and contrasting with the colorfulness of the play.
In style, I thought it sort of a cross between Another American Asking and Telling and The Laramie Project (which, looking through the program, may not be such a coincidence, given that the writer of that play helped the writer of this one). It was one person who did the interviews and wrote a one-man show, like the former. It also had the writer in the play, showing his reactions as the story evolved, as in the latter. And it worked, due to the skill of Thomas Derrah, who played about 35 roles in the course of the show (with a huge variety of accents, ranging from German, to Indian, to French, to British, to American, to American-accented German, and so on).
The story is about the playwright going to a museum of objects from the 1890s, and finding that the curator/assembler/owner of the collection is more interesting than all she'd collected. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf is an improbable person (I'll not summarize what's in the Wikipedia article I linked to), who came across in this play as someone who was dedicated to survival, and to collecting her phonographs, chronographs, and other furniture, even more so than needing people.
And though it's mostly about Charlotte's life, it's also about the playwright, and his reactions, his need for history, the need to believe one version of her life (as more information comes out). It's an interesting dynamic.
It's a well-told story, having funny moments as well as serious ones. Definitely worth seeing, though I suspect I would've gotten more out of it if I knew any German.
The stage was set up simply, with an 'antique' desk and chair in one corner, the surface black with some white pattern near the corner of the desk. A ramp on one side lead up to a smaller space that had a phonograph on a table, and a white-with-black-decorations back to the stage. In other words, all black and white, matching the main character's outfit, and contrasting with the colorfulness of the play.
In style, I thought it sort of a cross between Another American Asking and Telling and The Laramie Project (which, looking through the program, may not be such a coincidence, given that the writer of that play helped the writer of this one). It was one person who did the interviews and wrote a one-man show, like the former. It also had the writer in the play, showing his reactions as the story evolved, as in the latter. And it worked, due to the skill of Thomas Derrah, who played about 35 roles in the course of the show (with a huge variety of accents, ranging from German, to Indian, to French, to British, to American, to American-accented German, and so on).
The story is about the playwright going to a museum of objects from the 1890s, and finding that the curator/assembler/owner of the collection is more interesting than all she'd collected. Charlotte von Mahlsdorf is an improbable person (I'll not summarize what's in the Wikipedia article I linked to), who came across in this play as someone who was dedicated to survival, and to collecting her phonographs, chronographs, and other furniture, even more so than needing people.
And though it's mostly about Charlotte's life, it's also about the playwright, and his reactions, his need for history, the need to believe one version of her life (as more information comes out). It's an interesting dynamic.
It's a well-told story, having funny moments as well as serious ones. Definitely worth seeing, though I suspect I would've gotten more out of it if I knew any German.