Borrowed Time

It never fails...the build up to a vacation is heady and exciting, ripe with anticipation at the different things you are going to do and see, the cool food you'll get to eat and the fun things you'll buy.Then you return...and it's just over. Nothing more than those photos and souvenirs...a memory.


I made my first trip to Europe by myself last week to visit my sister in London. I had heard rave reviews of the city from various trusted friends and eargerly looked forward to my visit...so I went. I had an amazing time: theatre, culture, food, stores, museums, walking tours. If you ask what my favorite thing was, I probably would come back at you with a list because I can honestly say I loved almost every experience I had...though among the top would be the new Globe theatre tour, a pub walking tour, a Jack the Ripper walking tour and a day trip to Windsor castle, tea at Harrods (and that's not even half!)

Now I've returned and for the most part have gotten over my jet-lag...but the point is that I didn't want to leave...I was sad to leave. I felt like I was on borrowed time while I was there and it was just a matter of time before I got dropped back into my life here.

Don't get me wrong, I was only 'cheating' on New York, I have no plans to pick up and move but I would love to spend longer in London, learning the culture and the quirks that make
it wonderful. But now I have to go back to work tomorrow. Maybe it would be better if I looked forward to going to work...but well, you can't have everything.

Cheers.

I Am My Own Wife

I wrote this a while ago, when I saw this play on Broadway and I saw it again at Georger Street Playhouse last weekend and thought it was just as riveting then, so I wanted to share this:

A man in a dress seems hardly the sort a serious drama would take place around. If this thought is present, expel it before you experience “I Am My Own Wife.” Jefferson Mays, the man who is this show, enters for the first time in a long black dress and a string of pearls. No one laughs. He holds himself regally and in a perfectly affected German accent explains about Charlotte von Mahlsdorf’s phonograph collection. Mr. Mays portrays over forty characters in this play, but the central figure is Charlotte, a transvestite who survived both the Nazis and the Communists in East Germany, without giving up her identity.

The play begins as Doug, the playwright as a character, discovers and becomes enamored with Charlotte and her life. He decides to write a play about her life and visit her several times. Charlotte obliges with tales of her younger days, all set in her home which she made into a museum. Her museum is comprised of furniture pieces that Charlotte has obsessively collected during her life. The set suggests the furniture collection through shelves of old fashioned furniture on the upstage wall and through miniatures that Charlotte sets up as she gives Doug his first glimpse into her life. Much of the first act is dedicated to stories Charlotte relates to Doug regarding her survival.

It is not until the second act when Doug hears that Charlotte might have been a willing informant for the Communists that Doug and the audience has any reason to doubt Charlotte. We see one of her friends in jail but we do not dream it was she who helped him get there until Doug starts having his doubts. The image the audience is left with at the end is Charlotte as a young boy, sitting symbolically between two tigers. One, the Nazis. The other, the Communists. The boy sits in the middle smiling and safe.

Mr. Mays’ performance is nothing short of brilliant. In playing scenes with himself, all he has to do is change his physicality slightly and the audience knows that this is a different character. Perhaps the best example of this is a scene in the second act when Charlotte appears on a talk show and as Charlotte; Mr. Mays sits up straight with his hands folded and as the male talk show host, leans over with his legs on either side of the chair. It almost makes it seem as though there are two different actors onstage. But there are not. There is only one. And he wears a dress.