I Am My Own Wife

This show has now closed, click here for a listing of current and future London shows

Play Opened 10 November 2005, Closed 10 December 2005

Duke of York's Theatre St Martin's Lane, London

"Spellbinding theatre... a mesmerising, virtuoso performance" The Daily Telegraph

I Am My Own Wife tells of author Doug Wright's fascination with the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a German transvestite who was caught up in the great European dramas of the 20th century. Unlike many contemporaries, von Mahlsdorf survived the Nazi regime and its replacement in East Germany, the Soviet-dominated Communist dictatorship.

Direct from Broadway, Jefferson Mays recreates his role portraying more than 40 characters in a work that explores the will to survive. I Am My Own Wife played an eleven months season at Broadway's Lyceum when it won the Tony Awards for 'Best Play' and 'Best Actor' (for Jefferson Mays) as well as The Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

"Jefferson Mays's prize-winning performance deserves plaudits" The Guardian

"You would be hard-pressed to find anything as impeccably structured as this, or an actor as energetic and accomplished as Jefferson Mays. This is a one-man show and Mays segues from one character to the next and back again like an old pro impersonator, getting a great deal of comedy out of his switches between 74-year-old Charlotte in her orthopaedic boots and 42-year-old Doug Wright, the plays author who tells Charlottes story through the transcripts of their meetings." The Sunday Telegraph

"Fascinating" The Times

"Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife arrives in the West End from Broadway dripping with awards. And with self-indulgence... Jefferson Mays, in black skirt and pearls, has a ball playing author and Charlotte and everyone with whom they come into contact. But it's a turn, not a revelation. He is his own audience." The Observer

"This one-man bio-drama arrives from New York piled high with awards: a Pulitzer Prize, Obies and Tonys for Doug Wright's script, Moises Kaufman's directing, and Jefferson Mays' performance... [The] play's dark twist and the ironic tensions are strong: the preserver/destroyer; the obsessive bygones-hoarder with a devastating past. This all comes into focus by the end and you are, unsettlingly, left guessing which of her anecdotes and alibis were true, which compulsive fabrications." Independent on Sunday

"I Am My Own Wife is the most stirring new work to appear on Broadway this fall. With nothing to recommend it but a story that is both moving and intellectually absorbing, a staging that is both careful and lovely and a performance that is a true tour de force, we should all hope that theatergoers prove that it belongs there." The New York Times