Pictured Jefferson Mays ( left ) and Doug Wright. By Catey Sullivan
German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf was someone who should have never existed.
A woman in a man's body ( not 'trapped' in a man's body, just contentedly residing there, she repeatedly stressed ) , Mahlsdorf dressed as any woman—biological or spiritual—would, in women's clothing.
That she did so openly and consistently throughout two of the most brutally repressive regimes in human history was a jawdropping feat of individualism.
Neither the Nazis of the Third Reich nor the Communists that ruled East Germany until the fall of the Berlin wall could smother the force of nature that was Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.
In playwright Douglas Wright's drama I Am My Own Wife, running through Sunday, Feb. 20 the Goodman Theatre, von Mahlsdorf's story—or at least the story she told Wright—comes to life in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning one-person drama.
'Under the Nazis, gays were routinely targeted for execution. The communists, to put it mildly, did not look kindly on any overt displays of individuality. It is remarkable that someone as noticeable as an open cross dresser was able to survive those two regimes,' Wright said of von Mahlsdorf, who died in 2002.
Born Lothar Berfelde, Charlotte's phenomenal feats of bravery and activism make her transvestite-ism almost seem a mere footnote in her autobiography.
Consider:
As a child, Charlotte took a rolling pin and clubbed her horrifically abusive father to death, saving her mother's life.
At 16, she talked her way out of an execution by Nazi firing squad.
During World War II, she rescued scores of antiques that would otherwise have been destroyed by bombs and vandals.
In Communist East Berlin, she defied the Stasi ( secret police ) and provided a clandestine meeting place and cabaret for the gay and lesbian community.
Finally, she established the Grunderzeit Museum, a treasure house of precious antiques, clocks and works of art.
Wearing a simple dress, a string of pearls and no makeup ( she said she didn't need any ) , the soft-spoken von Mahlsdorf established herself as one of the grand icons of gay history.
Wright learned of von Mahlsdorf in 1992, through a friend working for U.S. News and World Report in Berlin.
'Charlotte was a night owl so I met her at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday night,' Wright recalled. 'We stayed up until 2 a.m. talking. When I left, my mind was reeling. I knew I had to write about this woman.
'I thought, 'My God, what this person could teach me about navigating my own life. It's enough difficulty to be gay in our culture. Our country can be hostile, judgmental and unforgiving. Yet here was a person who had survived not the Republicans but the Nazis and the communists.'
But as Wright eventually discovered, the truths behind Charlotte's survival are slippery, amorphous ones.
She was estranged from her siblings. Asked to comment on their life growing up, her eldest brother put off reporters with a curt, 'We remember our childhood very differently,' Wright said.
The father whom Charlotte claims the rest of her family lived in mortal fear of? There is no official record of his death.
The firing squad she escaped? Again, no record.
As for the antiques she preserved in her museum, had she 'rescued' them as she claimed or simply looted the homes of people who had been deported?
Most damningly, there is a file the Stasi kept on Charlotte. She was, according to the secret police, an informant for them, someone who betrayed and spied on her closest friends.
The answers to such hard questions are as elusive as the very meaning of life.
The mutable line between historical truth and personal mythology in Charlotte von Mahlsdorf's life presented Wright with the 'vexing conundrum' at the heart of his play, he said.
'There are stories that we tell one another to learn and there are stories that we invent for ourselves to get through to tomorrow, to help us survive in a complicated world. We need historical truths, and we also need stories that help us get up in the morning. The two are always in a curious tension with each other. I believe that in her heart, Charlotte believed everything she told people,' he said.
But what of the Stasi file? Doesn't that condemn Charlotte von Mahlsdorf as a heinous, immoral traitor to everything she purported to champion?
'Who knows that the Stasi file is true?' asked Jefferson Mays, who has been portraying Charlotte and the other two dozen-odd characters in the play since its inception.
'I haven't come to any conclusion about the truth of Charlotte's life,' Mays continued. 'I think that is one of the reasons that this has sustained my interest: She remains an enigma. I also think everybody builds his or her own mythology to greater or lesser degree.
'In order to remain true to who she was, Charlotte had to construct her own persona. She very deftly and courageously fashioned this life for herself in unbelievable circumstances,' Mays said.
'I don't think you can sit down and moralize about it. Everyone has their own truth. Charlotte's brothers and sisters have obviously fashioned their own truth and it is different from her's. I also don't think we should take the word of a Stasi control agent who perhaps wanted to impress his superiors,' Mays said.
'Charlotte had a vibrant and compelling imagination that got her through numerous situations,' Wright added. 'In some instances, when she was forced to compromise herself to survive or perhaps had to make decisions that we might frown on. She had to buttress herself with a self-invented mythology.
'Sometimes,' Wright concluded, 'The truth is unruly and ugly and doesn't provide the necessary stories we need to survive. I believe in the spirit of Charlotte's story. '
About Face took Wife
from the start
Before the Pulitzer, the Tonys, and the national press adulation of I Am My Own Wife, Chicago's About Face Theatre took a chance on the unknown work and agreed to give the play its first complete staging.
'The role of [ About Face Artistic Director ] Eric Rosen in bringing the play across the finish line was monumental,' playwright Douglas Wright said. 'About Face was selfless and passionate, our advocates at a crucial time. Without them, I don't think we would have made it to New York.'
About Face hadn't been planning to devote a chunk of its 2003 season to I Am My Own Wife. But that changed when 'Moises Kaufman called me out of the blue,' Rosen said of the director of I Am My Own Wife.
When Kaufman made the call, the script was in pieces.
'The first draft of the play I read was still in fragments,' Rosen recalled. That wasn't the only difficulty Rosen saw with the evolving drama.
'I was very skeptical of one person playing all the different parts,' Rosen added. 'We took a leap of faith based on the enthusiasm Doug and Moises felt for Jefferson [ Mays ] .' he continued.
'The first time I saw Jeff read, it took about five seconds before I realized how perfect he was for the show. He has a very specific, mercurial talent,' Rosen said.
That talent earned Mays, who is still with the production, the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play.
Change was the order of the day during the 18 performances I Am My Own Wife had in March, 2003, under the auspices of About Face at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art.
Characters were added and subtracted, lines cut and revised and two entire sets were devised.
'It was a great madness,' Rosen said of the process. 'At first, there were 25 characters. Then it went up to 32, then down to 22. We had a set entirely built that didn't work, so we tore it up and built a new one.'
So with all the work About Face has done with I Am My Own Wife, why is it coming back to Chicago as a Goodman production?
'The Goodman had the best resources to bring it back to Chicago. It's not part of our mission to try to mount major regional productions. Our mission is to mount new plays about gay issues,' Rosen said.
'I've been stunned and thrilled at the success I Am My Own Wife has had,' Rosen concluded. 'It's showed us what we can accomplish on a national level.'
I Am My Own Wife continues through Sunday, Feb. 20 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Tickets are $20 to $60. Through the Tix at Six program, half-price tickets may be available on the day of the performance. Call ( 312 ) 443-3800.
