• the217
• Stage
• Multiple personalities wins the audience over

One of the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts' three Summer Studio Theatre events features Henson Keyes playing 35 different characters in Doug Wright’s remarkably compelling, Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play, "I Am My Own Wife." The play concerns the life of German male transvestite Lothan Berfelde, better known as Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, who survived Nazi persecution and successfully maintained a cultural museum and underground gay bar during the years of Communist control of East Germany.

On a simple stage set of Charlotte’s museum, Keyes brings to life dozens of characterizations by simple vocal and posturing variations and only limited costuming alterations. As Charlotte describes harsh treatment by the Nazis, close friendships with other antique collectors, East German secret police investigations and the new freedoms that occur after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Keyes’ incredible vocal skills makes this rather familiar narrative both engaging and fascinating. While mostly maintaining Charlotte’s feminine persona and dress, Keyes successfully shifts into two other main male characters with split second precision. These include playwright Doug Wright and a US News & World Report bureau chief, John Marks.

"I Am My Own Wife," a truly powerful one-man show is directed by Brant Pope and continues at Krannert until June 28.