By Louis B. Hobson, April 26 2013, Calgary Sun Entertainment
I want to make something crystal clear at the onset of my review of Third Street Theatre’s production of Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife starring Paul Welch.
This is one play, one production and one performance you do not want to miss.
In 2004, Wright’s powerful and insightful 75-minute one-man show won the Tony Award, Lambda Literary Award and Pulitzer Prize and once you’ve seen it, you’ll understand why.
It is simultaneously a biography of the famous German transvestite Charolotte van Mahlsdorf and an autobiography of how Wright came to meet the former Lothar Berfelde who not only survived the Nazi and Communist regimes in East Germany but preserved hundreds of thousands of artifacts from records to furniture.
Wright’s words take his audiences on a mesmerizing journey but it demands an actor of staggering ability and presence to make every moment captivating and that’s what we have in Welch.
He turns in a beautifully nuanced performance not only as Wright and Charlotte but dozens of other characters.
Directed with confidence and subtlety by Kevin McKendrick on a most clever set by Deitra Kalyn, I Am My Own Wife is theatre at its finest.
