Theatre
I Am My Own Wife
Valletta Waterfront

Bravery is often associated with feats of daring and achievement on the battlefield, but we often tend to forget that the greatest battlefield of all is not necessarily in a war zone, but exists along the progress of our lives.

The variations in the attitudes of the plethora of characters were strikingly clear

Exit Stage Right Theatre exposed this in their latest production. Alan Paris starred in Doug Wright’s one-man play, I Am My Own Wife, directed by Nanette Brimmer.

The performance itself was a tour de force for the talented Paris, who showed that he has what it takes to interpret 37 different characters in one show: there may have been a single actor, but there were multiple characters appearing on stage and interacting with each other.

I steered clear of calling it a one-man-show upon introduction because it risks sounding tokenistic and simplifies the subject matter to a mere cabaret-style piece – which it most certainly is not.

I Am My Own Wife chronicles the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf , a German transvestite born Lothar Berflede, who survived the Third Reich and subsequently the repressive Communist regime of East Germany in an almost impossible story of personal bravery against the odds that daily life threw at her – from fearing for her life because of her sexuality, to learning to survive the hard way in the face of adversity and the terrible decision to bludgeon her brutal, violent Nazi father to death.

Recognition and admiration following the fall of the Berlin Wall was stripped from her when she was accused of having been a Stasi informant. But her innate sense of purpose and her love for useful, domestic and social art – which made her a voracious collector of antiques and early phonograph drums and records – kept this remarkable woman alive, vivacious and socially engaged till her death in 2002.

Her Gründerzeit Museum (museum of everyday things) was the labour of love of many decades and still stands today. Thanks to Marco Bartolo’s set and light and sound design by Ismael Portelli and Alec Massa respectively, this unusual performance space became the ideal museum to showcase the everyday life of an extraordinary person.

What Paris created, thanks also to Brimmer’s insightful and very sensitive direction and guidance, was nothing short of a bravura performance. His ability to interpret the two main characters of Charlotte and her biographer-playwright, who wrote himself into the play, was impeccable work in itself – he alternated from a girlish German accent, which was still laden with the wisdom of experience, to a pronounced American accent.

In the process, however, as he recounted Charlotte’s life through the people she met and the episodes which marked it, Paris managed to give concrete form to 35 other characters: from Charlotte’s terrible father to her lesbian mentor Tante Luise, to her friends Minna Mahlich and Alfred Kirchner, the collector who was her artistic match and occasional lover and who selflessly sacrificed himself to keep her safe from the Stasi officers who arrested him. The variations in the attitudes of the plethora of characters were strikingly clear, including the small interjections by foreign journalists interviewing Charlotte about her life and her lifestyle.

For any actor, the stage itself is a battlefield where the first step in courage is to face an expectant audience, and from my seat, a critic too. The minutes before curtain-up are the worst, when fear grips you the most and bedevils your mind with concern about your lines and interpretation; and Paris came through unscathed and triumphant, carrying with him, not merely one brilliant character, but 37, making it a top-notch performance.

A definite must-see for this season.

• I Am My Own Wife is being staged again on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 8pm at Vault No. 2, Valletta Waterfront.