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Award-winning play is a tour de force

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“I Am My Own Wife” is a play about transvestism and the lead character is indeed a notable real-life German eccentric, born biologically male and named Lothar Berfelde who in early adolescence began dressing as a female and adopted the name Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.

That he did so openly under the viselike grip of homophobic Nazi rule and the later German Communist regime is utterly mysterious and yet how he did it is a layered tale of ambiguity and ambivalence.

Tenacious in his gender switch until his death in 2002 at age 74, Charlotte presents herself as a heroine in this play, which won the Tony Awards for best play and actor and Pulitzer Prize for best drama. The playwright Doug Wright (who is also a character on stage) nevertheless casts a darker shadow across her role playing.

Charlotte is finally what Winston Churchill once famously called the nation of Russia ā€” “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

“But perhaps there is a key,” Churchill also added. And the key to Charlotte is her need to survive with her identity intact. For the sake of survival, all is permitted. For the sake of survival, people may lie to themselves, about themselves and also to others. This same psychic tactic is sometimes a ruse meant to effect self-cure, through the freer expression of those drives that would otherwise fester in repression and neurosis ā€” or worse.

And lies can be as important as the truth, a point of view explored at length by the distinguished ethicist Sissela Bok in her books ā€œLying and Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation.ā€

We live our lives, this play declares, as the creator of narratives. We tell “stories” about ourselves. Our reliability as narrators is always contingent, a fact that troubled Wright greatly as he constructed this play from a series of interviews he initially carried out with Charlotte, during which encounters he fell in some senses in love with her distinctive persona. Thus, when her credibility came into question ā€” indeed, when it began to appear that all along she had perhaps been collaborating successively with the Nazis and then the East German secret police (the notorious Stasi) ā€” Wright was heart-broken and slammed head first into a giant writer’s block that stalled the work of turning the interviews into the play.

As for Charlotte herself, we are led to believe that she had convinced herself at least that what she claimed to be true was true. But for Wright, it took the director Moises Kaufman, who also brought the murder of Matthew Shepard to the stage in “The Laramie Project,” to work with Wright in three weeks of workshops at the Sundance Theatre Lab in 2000 to help the playwright find his way through to putting all the questions about Charlotte onto the stage inhabited by a total of 35 characters.

At the Signature Theatre, the actor Andrew Long turned to 25-year-old director Alan Paul to helm the production in which Long plays all 35 roles, from Charlotte herself to her brutal and abusive Nazi father to the playwright Doug Wright and myriad other characters in her life.

Signature’s artistic director Eric Schaeffer has said that doing “I Am My Own Wife” is for an actor a little like climbing Mount Everest, so he allowed Long to select his own director as a guide on this perilous ascent. And Paul in turn threw out all stage directions and approached the play, which opened on Broadway in 2003 with Kaufman directing and was also performed in D.C. in 2005, as a clean slate.

The result is a darker take on the play. No one should see this play expecting to see something kinky and slinky in sequins and boas or that Long will play Charlotte as a finger-popping RuPaul. Instead, Long plays Charlotte almost nun-like as a conventional Berlin hausfrau, wearing a simple black dress and a string of pearls with sensible shoes, not high heels.

She is an elegantly mannered throwback, a relic of the past in every sense, someone whose home in Berlin became her private museum housing Kaiser Wilhelm II-era antiques, objets d’art, and especially gramophones and clocks. But she not only collected objects, she drew people to her and she even quietly opened her doors to prostitutes and others of the demi-monde seeking a trysting place.

Who could have guessed that so off-center a concept for a play would attract a mainstream audience? But it has! In a one-man play, Long is a tour de force, gliding from role to role, from accent to accent, changing expressions and postures, gradations and colorations, in a stunning portrayal of all the many characters in Charlotte’s life.

It is an extraordinary work and deserves a large audience. Her life was real. Her story is an indomitable riddle. And attention must be paid.

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Theater

Celebrate Valentineā€™s Day with one of these three plays

ā€˜Waitress,ā€™ ā€˜Love Birds,ā€™ ā€˜Fuenteovejunaā€™ offer differing takes on love

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MALINDA plays Jenna in ā€˜Waitressā€™ at Olney Theatre Center.

For theatergoers seeking to mark Valentineā€™s Day with live music, love, and friendship, the DMV offers some new spins on traditional themes. 

Poised to make its regional debut at Olney Theatre Center, Sara Bareillesā€™s hit musical ā€œWaitressā€ (Feb.13-March 30) may not seem like a usual love story, but itā€™s a love story nonetheless. 

ā€œItā€™s about learning to love and value yourself,ā€ says MALINDA who plays Jenna, the showā€™s titular server/baker with aspirations to bake prize-winning pies and change her life. ā€œItā€™s also about sisterhood. From the start, the women involved in the show decided to be there for each other onstage and off, and it shows. For anyone with girl group love in their lives, this is an especially good show to see.

ā€œJenna doesnā€™t get a lot of satisfaction out of her primary partnership. Along with self-love she explores the antithesis of that ā€” partner violence. Our director [Marcia Milgrom Dodge] took the lesson of community support and community love to heart.ā€

Prior to coming out as bisexual in 2022, MALINDA considered herself more of a “quiet queer.ā€ However, the inspiration derived from Irish music (“music of the oppressedā€), which sheā€™s famed for singing on TikTok, compelled her to go public. 

She didnā€™t always believe her queerness to be special: ā€œFor me,ā€ MALINDA says, ā€œit was like saying my eyes are hazel. There wasnā€™t much to celebrate. But then I realized there were missing voices in my community. Felt like the right thing to do, and itā€™s been one of the great blessings of my life.ā€

Six years ago, after her Helen Hayes Award-winning turn in ā€œOnce,ā€ MALINDA took a break from musical theater. She needed time to age into dream parts, and one of those roles was Jenna. She recalls, ā€œGoing back to theater was prominently featured on my vision board, so when Marcia asked me to commit to ā€˜Waitress,ā€™ I happily agreed.ā€ 

For her, Valentineā€™s Day is an opportunity to reach out and tell friends, family, and, of course, romantic partners, just how much you love them. 

And she adds ā€œthatā€™s exactly how I plan to celebrate.ā€ 

D.C.ā€™s delightful Holly Twyford is spending Valentineā€™s Day working at the Folger on Capitol Hill. Sheā€™ll be on stage, her wife will be in the audience, and depending on the length of the program, theyā€™ll go out to dinner afterward.

For four performances, the multi-Helen Hayes award-winning actor is serving as narrator for ā€œThe Love Birdsā€ (Feb. 14-16), a new Folger Consort work that blends medieval music with a world-premiere composition by acclaimed composer Juri Seo and readings from Geoffrey Chaucerā€™s ā€œA Parlement of Foulesā€ by Twyford. 

Standing behind a podium, sheā€™ll read Chaucerā€™s words (translated from Middle English and backed by projected slides in the original language), alternating with music played on old and new instruments.  

ā€œThe new music is kind of dissonant with the sounds of birdcalls and nature sounds, painting a picture of whatā€™s going on in Chaucerā€™s poem thatā€™s beautiful and funny. Chaucer describes the male eagles pleading for the hand of the female eagle. Chaucer seems almost unwittingly feminist when he has the female eagle ask her eagle suitors to give her a year to think about it.ā€

GALA Hispanic Theatre in Columbia Heights presents ā€œFuenteovejunaā€ (through March 2), a timely production staged by out director JosĆ© Luis Arelleno. Penned in 1613, this work from the Spanish Golden Age ranks among playwright Lope de Vega’s most performed plays.

Itā€™s about tyranny and love, Arellano explains. Within Lope de Vegaā€™s timely tale of brutish power lies an intense love story. In fact, at the top of the show, four characters, two males and two females play a game. What is love? One of the players asserts that love doesnā€™t exist, while the others disagree. Itā€™s a charming way to kick off the play.

The celebrated director isnā€™t one to telegraph messages, preferring audiences think for themselves. That said, he does, of course, make strong directorial choices: ā€œIf I have to choose between love or war, itā€™s more important to talk about love. For me, itā€™s a revolution.ā€ 

And apropos of a Valentineā€™s Day date, GALAā€™s production of ā€œFuenteovejunaā€ (performed in Spanish with English surtitles) is imbued with live music and verse, an important part of any romantic experience, adds David Peralto, the productionā€™s poetry and verse consultant as well as Arellanoā€™s longtime partner. 

The busy Spain-based couple will celebrate Valentineā€™s Day in Seville and couldnā€™t be happier. Arellano describes Seville as the most romantic city in the world.

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Theater

Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet tackles ā€˜Bedwetterā€™ at Arena

Sarah Silverman memoir a funny, poignant story of struggling with depression

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Ashley Blanchet as Miss New Hampshire in ā€˜The Bedwetter.ā€™ (Photo courtesy Blanchet)

ā€˜The Bedwetterā€™
Feb. 4-March 16
Arena Stage
1101 6th St., S.W.
$69-$119
Arenastage.org

Skilled and experienced at comedy and drama, Broadway vet Ashley Blanchet says thereā€™s a big difference between the two. She explains, ā€œComedy is right or wrong, you nail it or you donā€™t; whereas with drama thereā€™s room for subjectivity. Because I started out as a dancer, being able to hit the mark makes a lot of sense to me. Thereā€™s a lot of rhythm to comedy.ā€

Currently Blanchet is eliciting laughs as Miss New Hampshire in ā€œThe Bedwetterā€ at Arena Stage. A musical based on comedian Sarah Silvermanā€™s bestselling memoir, itā€™s the funny yet poignant story of a hairy 10-year-old girlā€™s struggle with clinical depression and bedwetting.

Blanchetā€™s Miss New Hampshire is a kind of fairy godmother character.  

ā€œMost of the time Iā€™m in Sarahā€™s head. She first sees me on TV in Miss America, and soon I start talking to her.ā€ 

By the end of the piece, Sarah learns that Miss New Hampshire is also a bedwetter. Subsequently, the future comedian turns her weaknesses into strengths, taking her depression and bedwetting and using it to fuel her creativity and eventual career.

This isnā€™t Blanchetā€™s first time as Miss New Hampshire. She initially auditioned in 2019 and eventually created the role off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company in 2022. 

She recalls going into the audition mostly cold. Only knowing that Miss New Hampshire is a pageant girl who unwittingly says some funny things, she partly fashioned her on Kristin Chenowethā€™s ditzy Glinda in ā€œWicked.ā€ 

ā€œSarah [Silverman] and the showā€™s director Anne Kauffman, were laughing. I thought they were just being polite. Turns out, they really liked what I did.ā€ 

Although Blanchet, 37, doesnā€™t claim a personal connection to bedwetting, she can relate to the depression described in the show. Like Sarah, she had a difficult time transitioning into her teenage years. In fact, she credits theater with saving her life.

At 14, Blanchet left home to attend Walnut Hill School, a private performing arts high school in Massachusetts. From there, she moved on to University of Michigan, a great preparatory place for theater, she says. After graduating with a BFA, she went straight to New York where she made her Broadway debut as part of the ensemble in ā€œMemphis.ā€ Soon she began progressing to parts with words and songs.

Because so many musicals thematically touch on being different, Blanchet says bisexuality helps in her work. 

ā€œIā€™ve always felt a little bit of an outsider, so the concept of acceptance and learning to love yourself found in ā€˜The Bedwetterā€™ is something I can relate to from both a queer perspective and from being Black. As I get older, Iā€™m increasingly grateful to be who I am.ā€ 

Going into college, Blanchet assumed she was straight, but after becoming exceptionally fond of a female friend, growing excited whenever they made plans to hang out, it became clear to her that her feelings were romantic. They were together for three years. 

ā€œBeing bisexual, there wasnā€™t like a community waiting for me despite there being many bi people. I didnā€™t have what my gay guy friends seemed to find. For me, sexual attraction is more about energy than body parts. Coming to own that and be proud of it was a journey and is relatable to different situations including acting.ā€ 

Blanchet has played Elsa in ā€œFrozenā€ on Broadway. She was the also the first Black actor to play the title role in ā€œRodgers + Hammersteinā€™s Cinderellaā€ at Paper Mill Playhouse, a well-known regional theater in New Jersey. And Blanchet very happily led the cast as Maria in ā€œThe Sound of Music,ā€ also at Paper Mill. 

ā€œThese are parts that I never knew Iā€™d do it. Thatā€™s kind of what itā€™s like to be Black in this business,ā€ she says. 

Scheduled to be in D.C. at Arena this winter, ā€œThe Bedwetterā€ cast assumed theyā€™d be in for a wild time no matter how the election played out. They werenā€™t wrong. Fortunately for Blanchet, sheā€™s immersed in her work and comfortably sharing digs with her big, beloved mixed-breed dog Cosmo.  

Returning to the show, a Broadway-bound production, is proving an exciting challenge. ā€œIā€™m like, ā€˜what did a I do last time? What made this joke work?ā€™ I canā€™t remember,ā€ she says laughing. ā€œBut itā€™s always good to return to the show, making tweaks and changes. Iā€™m always trying to do anything I can to improve my performance.ā€ 

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ā€˜Downstateā€™ follows plight of four registered sex offenders

What happens after prison when you canā€™t escape taint of wrongdoing

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Left to right:Ā Stephen Conrad Moore, Richard Ruiz Henry, Kelli Blackwell, Jaysen Wright, and Dan Daily (Photo by DJ Corey)Ā 

ā€˜Downstateā€™
Through Feb. 16
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$50-$102
Studiotheatre.org

Crime and punishment are up for discussion at Studio Theatre. In Bruce Norrisā€™s challenging work ā€œDownstate,ā€ the provocative playwright explores the circumstances of those whoā€™ve done their time but canā€™t seem to escape the taint of the wrongdoing. 

Set in a tidy, no-frills group house somewhere south of the Chicago metropolitan area, ā€œDownstateā€ gives us four disparate housemates with one thing in common: theyā€™re all registered sex offenders. 

Here, the men live. They wear ankle monitors and follow proscribed and increasingly stringent rules about where they can buy groceries and catch buses. Whatā€™s more, thereā€™s the serious harassment from belligerent neighbors who are privy to their pasts. 

Weā€™re first introduced to Fred (Dan Daily), a former piano instructor. The snowy haired, avuncular resident who uses a mobility scooter and peppers sentences with ā€œgolly geeā€ and ā€œgosh,ā€ couldnā€™t seem more harmless. But Fred has a past. 

And today, Fred also has guests. Andy (Tim Getman), a polite, fortyish financial planner, and his wife Em (Emily Kester), a not particularly Zen yoga instructor, who have traveled from Chicago. 

Itā€™s not a social call. Andy has come with a well-thought strategy on how to calmly confront the man who sexually assaulted him on a piano bench when he was 12. Since that day, Andyā€™s life has been plagued with anxiety and depression; he hopes to put some closure on the past. 

Interruptions ensue. There are calls from the coupleā€™s son at a nearby hotel whoā€™s eagerly awaiting a promised trip to a water park. At the house, other residents mill about, sometimes queuing up to use the modest homeā€™s one bathroom. Soon, Fredā€™s visitors leave, wholly dissatisfied. 

Each of the ex-convictsā€™ stories are imbued with denial. Gio (Jaysen Wright) is an angry guy who quotes scripture, works out, and relies on cringy Eddie Haskell manners. Because Gio did time for statutory rape with an underage female he feels less deviant than his housemates Fred; withdrawn Felix (Richard Ruiz Henry), who sexually assaulted his very young daughter; and Diana Ross-adoring, comfortably queer Dee (Stephen Conrad Moore) who sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy when he was 37 and after serving 15 years in prison continues to describe their connection as a loving relationship. 

Eventually, Andy returns without his wife and engages with Fred. Emotions run hot. (Here, fight choreographer Robb Hunterā€™s knowhow goes on full display.)

Playwright Norris, whose other works include ā€œClybourne Park,ā€ which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (2011), cunningly delves into revenge, guilt, and mercy through both the residents themselves and other characters including visiting probation officer Ivy (Kelli Blackwell) who shows an unyielding toughness with the occasional flash of sympathy, and Effie (Irene Hamiliton), Gioā€™s lively young co-worker at Staples. 

 ā€œDownstateā€ moves swiftly and is never dull. The dialogue rings true, and Norris is master of the shifting tone. 

Perceptively helmed by director David Muse, the design team creates the perfect place for this difficult story to unfold. Set designer Alexander Woodward serves up a house with several mostly unseen bedrooms, a dated paneled common area, and smallish galley kitchen, all with furnishings culled mostly from thrift stores and yard sales. There are necessary details like a busy group bulletin board, Gioā€™s weight bench, and Fredā€™s keyboard, a scarily broken front window, and an ominous baseball bat leaning near the front door. 

The space is persuasively lit by lighting designer Stacey Derosier, creating different moods, atmospheres, and, most memorably, an early morning light flooding in from the surrounding outside world. 

In his directorā€™s note, Muse writes ā€œI hope this is the kind of play that stays with you after you leave.ā€ In this, he certainly succeeds. 

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