A MATTER OF SURVIVAL

Once in a blue moon a play comes along that restores my belief in the vitality of the theater. I'm not talking about Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," which made its TV debut last night on HBO, but about the production of Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife," which just opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.

This one-man piece stars Jefferson Mays in multiple roles, chief among them a singular Berliner whose transvestitism is only one aspect of her unique identity, though it's been the most widely mentioned. Mays gives a virtuoso performance the likes of which comes along once in many blue moons. It is a spectacular achievement, but to describe it that way is to give a misleading impression.

Mays illuminates his impersonations with subtlety, not fireworks. He re-creates Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who was a real-life figure, with a controlled, riveting intensity. His fusion of intelligence, feelings, irony and humor radiates heat and light, but purposely kept at room temperature. This allows Charlotte's bizarre survival story from the Nazi and Communist eras to unfold as part of daily experience rather than as blinding revelation, like a cold thermonuclear reaction that still eludes science and is all the more astonishing.

Mays does not do it alone. He has brilliant collaborators in Wright, best known for "Quills," who wrote the script or rather constructed it from hours of tape-recorded interviews with Charlotte herself; in director Moises Kaufman, celebrated for "The Laramie Project" and "Gross Indecencies"; and in outstanding scenic, lighting and costume designers. Their presence was invisible but tangible.

"Wife" had an acclaimed life before coming to Broadway. First developed in regional theaters, it was staged in a successful About Face Theatre workshop production at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, a < FONT color=#003399>mixed notice from Variety notwithstanding. Further developed and clarified, "Wife" then ran Off-Broadway from May to August earlier this year at Playwrights Horizons, where it racked up more raves and many awards. The Broadway production now at the Lyceum is essentially a transfer. Here's a review and here's another. Faber & Faber is to publish the text of the play in January.