Monodrama | Best Czech Non-Professional Drama Performance 2009 | Official Review

Based on a true story, and inspired by interviews conducted by the playwright over several years, I AM MY OWN WIFE tells the fascinating tale of Lothar Berfelde, a real-life German transvestite who dressed as a woman and under the name of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf managed to survive both the Nazi onslaught and the repressive East German Communist regime. The text was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.

AUTHOR: Doug Wright
TRANSLATION: Adam Novák
ACTING: Libor Ulovec
SET DESING: Jana Hradecká
SOUNDS: Jakub Vyplel
LIGHTS: David Oupor
COSTUME: Hana Jarošová
DIRECTED: Divadlo SoLiTEAter

CHARACTERS: (in order of appearance)

Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, the main character | John Marks, American pressman | Doug Wright, American playwright | Tante Luise, Charlotte’s auntie | SS Officer, infantry police | SS Commander, infantry police | Lothar Berfelde, teenage Charlotte | Mr Berfelde, Charlotte’s father | Prison Guard in juvenile penitentiary | Minna Mahlich, Mulack-Ritze barwoman | Cultural Minister of Federal Republic of Germany | Stasi Official, East-German secret police | Alfred Kirschner, Charlotte’s friend | Young Homosexual Man | American Soldier and his buddy | Customs Official, East Germany | Stasi Agent | Prison Official | Nurse | TV Speaker, German evening news | Markus Kaufmann, conservative politician | Ulrike Liptsch, student of Humboldt University | Josef Rüdiger, East-German dissident | Ziggy Fluss, German TV talk-show entertainer | First Neo-Nazi | Second Neo-Nazi | Brigitte Klensch, Berlin journalist | Karl Henning, Munich journalist | François Garnier, French reporter from Berlin | Shirley Blacker, American reporter from Berlin | Daisuke Yamagishi, Japanese reporter from Berlin | Mark Finley, American activist | Pradeep Gupta, Indian reporter from Berlin | Clive Twimbley, British reporter | Charlotte’s mother | Dieter Jörgensen, Bonn psychiatrist

DURATION: ca 140 minutes incl. a break following the Act One

Performed in Czech | Plot summary in English shall be provided upon request

The main character, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (born as Lothar Berfelde) is the most known east-German transvestite. He was born on March 18, 1928 in Mahlsdorf (Berlin suburbia) and died on April 30, 2002 at the same place. As a collector of decorative arts and items from so called Gründerzeit era (1890-1900) he founded a famous Gründerzeit Museum. In 1992 he was awarded the German Cross of Honour.

The author Doug Wright is an important American contemporary dramatist, film script-writer and librettist (Unwrap your Candy, Watbanaland, Wildwood Park, The Stonewater Rapture, Grey Gardens etc.). He received the Obie Award for his play Quills, also famously cinematized. He is an in-house dramatist at New York Theatre Workshop. For his play I am My Own Wife he was awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Price for the best drama.