Theatre doesn’t get much better than this. The old Fitz theatre is currently home to a revival of American playwright Doug Wright’s play I AM MY OWN WIFE, first performed Off Broadway in 2003, and then went on to take the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the following year.

With painstaking research Wright’s play brings vividly to the stage a remarkable character by the name of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (1926-2000).

Charlotte was a flamboyant gay transsexual who lived her  colourful life out on the streets of Berlin. She wrote a best selling autobiography, and became a figure of great folklore in the great German  city.

In bringing his play together, Wright conducted several lengthy interviews with Charlotte from 1992 to 1994.  The playwright also took into account newspaper accounts of her life, Charlotte’s interactions with key people in her life, and he also sighted the controversial Stasi file held by the East German Secret Police.

From the wealth of research that Wright undertook, he shaped his play into a one person show featuring some 35 characters. Wright includes himself as one of the characters as he explores Charlotte’s life. Other characters include a television talk show host, Stasi officials, American GIs, SS officers, and several of Charlotte’s family members and friends.

Thematically, the play has one very clear through-line, an exploration of what it must have  been like for a person as vulnerable and as complex as Charlotte to have lived her life, as authentically as she did, through two of the most oppressive regimes that the world has ever known.

Shaun Rennie’s current production at the Old Fitz is a strong revival of  Wright’s major work. Ben Gerrard gives an outstanding performance in a very demanding role. The creative team- lighting designer Hugh Hamilton, set designer Caroline Comino, sound man Nate Edmondson and costume woman, Elise McCann– create the milieu in which he weaves his spell.

The many sided portrait we get is intriguing and turbulent. There’s the Charlotte who created her own homegrown museum, which many East Berliners flocked to, comprising many  19th century German artifacts such as period furniture, antiques, and early musical instruments…

The Charlotte who betrayed a friend to the Stasi…albeit after the Stasi police had been torturing him.

The Charlotte who during the Cold War, when the Russians threatened to destroy a Weimar era cabaret in Berlin’s red light district, rescued each table, cane back chair and liquor bottle and hid them in her basement. Her bravery was later, in 1992, to be rewarded with a prestigious medal from the German Cultural Ministry, for her efforts in preserving such important artefacts.

There’s a penultimate scene that takes place early in  Charlotte’s life…His mother is reprimanding him along the lines…She is telling him to stop dressing up in women’s lives and start getting serious about his life…She tells him that it is time that he started looking for a wife. He retorts, ‘I am my own wife.’…

This is a memorable night in the theatre, spotlighting a unique life story.

An Oriel Group production, in association with Red Line productions, I AM MY OWN WIFE is playing the Old Fitz theatre until 5th December. Performance times are Tuesdays to Saturdays at 7.30pm, Sundays at 5pm and a matinee on Saturday 5th December at 3pm. Bookings http://www.oldfitztheatre.com.