Once in a blue moon a play comes along that restores my belief in the vitality of the theater. This one-man piece stars Jefferson Mays in multiple roles, chief among them a singular Mays illuminates his impersonations with subtlety, not fireworks. He Mays does not do it alone. He has brilliant collaborators in Wright, best known for “Quills,” “Wife” had an acclaimed life before coming to Broadway. First developed in regional 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-7h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI’m not talking about Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” which made its TV debut last
\nnight on HBO, but about the production of Doug Wright’s
\nBroadway at the Lyceum Theatre.<\/P>
\n
\nBerliner whose transvestitism is only one aspect of her unique identity, though it’s been the most
\nwidely mentioned. Mays gives a virtuoso performance the likes of which comes along once in
\nmany blue moons. It is a spectacular achievement, but to describe it that way is to give a
\nmisleading impression. <\/P>
\n
\nre-creates Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who was a real-life figure, with a controlled,
\nriveting intensity. His fusion of intelligence, feelings, irony and humor radiates heat and light, but
\npurposely kept at room temperature. This allows Charlotte’s bizarre survival story from the
\nNazi and Communist eras to unfold as part of daily experience rather than as blinding revelation,
\nlike a cold thermonuclear reaction that still eludes science and is all the more astonishing.<\/P>
\n
\nwho wrote the script or rather constructed it from hours of tape-recorded interviews with
\nCharlotte herself; in director Moises Kaufman, celebrated for “The Laramie Project” and
\n“Gross Indecencies”; and in outstanding scenic, lighting and costume designers. Their presence
\nwas invisible but tangible.<\/P>
\n
\ntheaters, it was staged in a successful
\nproduction at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, a
\nFurther developed and clarified, “Wife” then ran Off-Broadway from May to August earlier this
\nyear at
\nproduction now at the