Photo c/o Stageworks Theatre
'I Am My Own Wife' solely stars RP McLaughlin as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a real transgender woman who managed to survive Nazi Germany and subsequent communist regime.
‘I Am My Own Wife,’ playwright Doug Wright’s 2003 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning one-person play opens at the Channel district’s Stageworks Theatre this weekend and runs through Feb. 25. The drama solely stars RP McLaughlin as Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a real transgender woman who managed to survive Nazi Germany and subsequent communist regime. McLaughlin will also play all of the other more than 40 characters.
This production of a story about queer survival comes to our community at a time when the Sunshine State is steeped with anti-LGBT+ legislation.
Since 1965’s anti-gay Purple Pamphlet—state sanctioned, anti-gay propaganda which framed gay men as pedophiles—Florida’s legislative tolerance of its LGBT has been inconsistent at best. The legality of same-sex marriage, adoption and even Pride events has swung back and forth in state and local legislation. The DeSantis era marks a reinvigorated quest to annihilate queer life and community beginning with 2022’s HB1557 or the ‘Don’t Say Gay Bill’ and continuing with more anti-trans bills in 2023.
“It's particularly cruel because we've seen so many advances in gay rights; harbingers of fear want to revoke rights we've worked for decades to achieve, and that's especially pernicious,” Wright told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay in an email.
He notes that in some ways transgender people in Florida have it even worse than they did in Communist East Germany, where homosexuality was fully decriminalized in 1968 and transgender surgery was free under the nationalized health system.
When discussing laws which prohibit or restrict cross-dressing or drag performances it is worth noting that cross-dressing has been an integral part of theater since its genesis. From Ancient Greece to Shakespeare to 20th and 21st century popular film and television including “Some Like It Hot” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
“When he condemns it, Governor DeSantis reveals a painfully finite vision of the past, as well as a narrow-minded, bigoted prescription for the future,” added Wright.
Stageworks Director Karla Hartley shares Wright’s sentiments. “I Am My Own Wife” wasn’t originally on the Spring 2024 calendar for Stageworks, and when DeSantis started coming down harder on Florida’s queer community a patron came to Hartley with concerns about what this could mean for Stageworks and what the company was allowed to show. Hartley—who has a trans family member who moved out of the state in the aftermath of anti-gay legislation—knew she wanted to make an adjustment to the calendar and swapped one of the plays for “I Am My Own Wife.”
“This is an important thing, not just to me personally but to Floridians and to the nation,” Hartley said. “It’s a really important story.”
Tickets for “I Am My Own Wife” showing at Stageworks Theatre in Tampa on select nights from Feb. 8-25 are still available and start $25.
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