Photo: Harold Guess
Born in 1928 in Berlin, the boy Lothar Berfelde would become Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, both iconic “beloved Charlotte” and also the city’s “most notorious transvestite”. Dressing as a woman and taking male lovers, Charlotte was rather pleased with the organs nature had provided, and never seriously embarked on physical sexual reassignment.
Her remarkable life as related in Doug Wright’s 2004 Pulitzer prize-winning one-person drama, I Am My Own Wife, is an inspirational story of the courage of one individual to defend their integrity against paternal tyranny, totalitarian regimes, the narrow social conventions of polite society and eventually trial by media. She survived with wry humour both the Nazi SS and the East German Stasi police, though not without damage.
Originator of the Gründerzeitmuseum and recipient of the Bundesverdienstkreuz, she was accused in the 1990s of having collaborated with the former regime. The controversy surrounding her later years and the difficulties this presented for her hero-worshipping biographer, successfully transform the script from yet-another ‘biopic’ into a riveting drama.
Dressed in only a plain black dress with a single string of pearls, Jeremy Crutchley’s performance is measured, skilfully paced, perfectly gauged, remarkably controlled and authentically understated. He embodies all the characters in Charlotte’s life consummately. His German, American-German and American accents are almost flawless. As Charlotte, Crutchley is transfigured, as convincing as Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk in the recent film.
