As the lights in the theater dimmed and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s predominantly LGBTQ+ cast and crew-run production of I Am My Own Wife began, there was a stillness in the room. If any of my fellow theatergoers were in the same headspace as me, it was one filled with anger, sadness, helplessness, and fear around what’s happening in the country right now. I came to the theater in search of hope, of inspiration, of answers for how we as humans can get through another moment in history where marginalized people are yet again the targets.
Theater is inherently political.
I Am My Own Wife tells the story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (Jonathan Riker), a openly gender non-conforming antiques collector and museum owner in Berlin, Germany as she lives through both World War II and the Cold War that wrought the East German Communist occupation. She was a real person; the play is based off of playwright Doug Wright’s interviews and conversations with her.
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Like theater, the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf was political. It was also one of survival and resilience. The show paints a picture of her life, from growing up with an abusive Nazi father, to coming to understand her own identity as a trans woman, to finding a passion in collecting Weimar and Jewish cultural artifacts during two of history’s most oppressive regimes.
But alongside that survival? Joy. Like the trans joy she felt trying on dresses the first time – a beautiful moment in Riker’s performance that gave me chills as I watched. And the way she talked about the pieces she collected with such fondness and love, and the beautiful queer community she built and kept safe within her home’s basement “bar” that she rescued from down the street. (It would have otherwise been destroyed.)
It was a joy to watch Riker balance not only the complexity within Charlotte’s character but bouncing between the other characters in the one-person show. Riker’s mannerisms, voices, and characterizations switched on a dime and it was a delight to experience.
And while we learn that Charlotte’s history may not have been entirely as she tells us, it doesn’t seem to matter. Was she a good person? Did she always do the “right” thing? Maybe not. But as she says herself in the show, describing the antiques in her collection, “The polish is as old as the antique itself,” as are all the knicks, cuts, cracks. “These things are proof of its history.” Like the furniture, Charlotte was not perfect, but she had a history of survival that we can all learn from. And the play paints a beautiful portrait of this.
“You must show it as is. It is a record of living. Of lives,” she says.”
And by telling her story, we get to see the record of her existence, of her survival, of her joy. Because queer people have always been here and always will be. And art, theater, and stories are a powerful resistance against anyone who wants to erase us.
I Am My Own Wife is on stage through Feb. 8, 2025 at the Broadway Theatre Center’s Studio Theatre.
