Here’s what Martin Brady had to say in the NASHVILLE SCENE this week about the Naked Stages production of I AM MY OWN WIFE:

“Mark Cabus’ one-man performance in Doug Wright’s Pulitzer-winning I AM MY OWN WIFE both opened and closed last week with four performances at Belmont’s Black Box Theater. Those who availed themselves of this rare solo piece witnessed one of Nashville’s most accomplished thespians successfully enacting dozens of roles, utilizing sharply differentiated vocal styles and a keen sense of movement to keep the many dramatis personae remarkably discrete while also sensitively relating the unique story of the German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (1928-2002).

Von Mahlsdorf’s tale is based on the playwright’s firsthand research, with Wright emerging as almost equally central to the scenario. Events take us through the bulk of the 20th century, from von Mahlsdorf’s dark teenage years—she killed her Nazi father (with a rolling pin) and spent four years in a detention home—through World War II and the Cold War era, in which she avoided the persecutions that typically befell the sexually marginalized, became a noted art collector and curator of the Gründerzeit Museum (in which she also resided), won the German Medal of Honor, and controversially collaborated with the Stasi (East German secret police).

Under the direction of Kate Al-Shamma, Cabus enunciated his English dialogue with a thick yet credibly effective German accent, intimately re-creating von Mahlsdorf’s world and using every corner of the theater to interact directly with his audience, often engaging with them individually as if they were sympathetic friends. With key scenes enhanced by Rudi Aldridge’s moody lighting, Cabus balanced warmth with the appropriate eccentricity in etching out the show’s main role, while also seamlessly working his way through the many ancillary characters.”

The article can be found here.