Feb. 18th, 2005 12:06 pm
I am my own Wright
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muckefuckHere I go with my amateur criticism again. I'm not going to dwell too much on the positive aspects of I am my own wife, which we saw at the Goodman last night, such as Mays phenomenal performance or the cleverness of Wright's Pulitzer-winning script. Those have been covered in detail elsewhere. We weren't in the best position to appreciate them anyway, being one row away from the very back wall of the theatre. For those of you more accustomed to off-Loop venues, the size of the place comes as something of a shock (we were in row KK) and it doesn't some especially well suited to a one-woman play. Mays' lines were always intelligible, but not his facial expressions, and my companion properly likened focusing on him to trying to concentrate on a single candle across the room.
Given that, we were thankful for the fact that the blocking is opened up somewhat in the second act and even for the gimmicky device of having Mays' play about three dozen different characters. The conceit of writing the playwright into the play also paid off then as questions about Mahlsdorf's involvement with the Stasi and honesty about her past increasingly come to the fore, though my viewing companion found the sudden depiction of a media circus rather baffling.
I put the blame for this confusion squarely on the playwright, who could've led into it better. The action kicks off with a letter from Wright's childhood friend[*], Berlin bureau chief for US News and World Report in Berlin, telling Wright that he has "found" an real character who is too "out there" for his paper but "right up your alley". I can't remember the date on the letter and online reviews only make coy references to "after the Wall came down". Wright's ensuing interviews, which make up the bulk of Act 1, date only to the beginning of February, 1993.
But Mahlsdorf was profiled in taz as early as August 1989. Jürgen Lemke--a psychologist treated as a throwaway character within the play--had known her since the late 1970s and had interviewed for his 1989 book Ganz normal anders (translated into English only two years later as Gay voices from East Germany). By 1992, Mahlsdorf's autobiography (Ich bin meine eigene Frau, from which the title of the play is taken) had been published, German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim had made an eponymous film of it, and both were covered in a September Spiegel article. (Incidentally, the first place I remember reading about her.) I'm not sure when in 1992 she was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz by the German government, but Wright places this about a third of the way into Act 2--even though, as I've pointed out, almost all of Act 1 takes place in early 1993.
In short, although Wright never claims to be the first to discover his subject, it is easy to see how someone who wasn't following the German press in the early 90s could get that impression. In fact, that's just what happened to my viewing companion. This also made Act 2 somewhat less interesting for me than for him, since it covered events I already knew about rather than delving more into Mahlsdorf's recollections of her past, with which I was only fleetingly acquainted, or the changes wrought on her by sudden celebrity, which don't come out in the play at all but are widely reported by people who knew her personally. With his aforementioned dismissive treatment of Lemke, Wright misses some chances to underscore the ambiguities he wishes to explore, since incidents related in his interviews--such as Mahlsdorf's supposed murder of her father--were absent from those conducted by Lemke only a few years earlier.
This is another things which makes the second act frustrating: Many German characters are introduced, but more as figures of fun than opportunities to comment intelligently on the contradictions of Mahlsdorf's character. The decision to give them all German accents contributes to this. The low point is a sequence depicting Mahlsdorf's appearance on a German talk show. The satiric contrast between Mahlsdorf's prim demeanour and the host's flippant attitude is rich--particularly when the former goes on to relate in detail the neo-Nazi attack on her garden party--but it goes on too long and then Wright squanders its impact with a cheap joke, the host's reference to the next guest as "American zinging zenzation David Hasselhoff!"
I appreciate Wright's challenge--he has to depict Germans speaking English, Germans speaking German, Americans speaking English, and Americans speaking German all in such a way that the audience can follow without the use of visual crutches, like supertitles or Doonesbury's inventive use of parentheses. His solutions is to have:
(On a side note, Mays' accents, although generally good, are somewhat overdone. In particular, he overuses [z]. Standard German has [z] for all initial s's, but Mays often inappropriately uses it word-internally. He has Mahlsdorf say "Weisensee" (lit. "sea of sages") for Weissensee ("White Lake", a neighbourhood in East Berlin) and "a[z]ociation", even though (1) German has the word Assoziation, pronounced [a%sotsja"tsjo:n] and (2) this contrasts with asozial ([azo"tsjal]) meaning "asocial, antisocial"). She also pronounces the name of another neighbourhood, Prenzlauer Berg, with a [z] even though German has [ts] here, as it does for virtually every case of orthographic z.)
Or am I just being too sensitive to American caricatures of German culture? Wright's not writing a thesis, after all. There's nothing wrong with injecting some comedy and Wright doesn't spare his alter ego from looking foolish and comic at times. I just feel that, overall, it distracts more than it entertains. And distraction runs the risk both of diminishing the impact of the play and trivialising the events it portrays--such as when reference to Stasi atrocities produced guffaws from some members of the audience.
Overall, I was surprised how removed I felt from the proceedings. I'm not sure how much to attribute that to physical distance (although the sightlines were excellent), to the shortcomings of Wright's script, or to the nature of Mahlsdorf herself, who is so dispassionate in her relations of events that Lemke diagnosed her autistic. Even the most provocative questions don't seem to rile her, which makes it hard for them to have a deep impact on the audience either.
[*] Note for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
niemandsrose: It strikes me that Marks and Wright have not only different intonation patterns and such but different Southern accents as well, which seems bizarre for two "childhood friends". I'd be curious if anyone in your biz has heard Mays' performance and what they thought of it on this score.
Given that, we were thankful for the fact that the blocking is opened up somewhat in the second act and even for the gimmicky device of having Mays' play about three dozen different characters. The conceit of writing the playwright into the play also paid off then as questions about Mahlsdorf's involvement with the Stasi and honesty about her past increasingly come to the fore, though my viewing companion found the sudden depiction of a media circus rather baffling.
I put the blame for this confusion squarely on the playwright, who could've led into it better. The action kicks off with a letter from Wright's childhood friend[*], Berlin bureau chief for US News and World Report in Berlin, telling Wright that he has "found" an real character who is too "out there" for his paper but "right up your alley". I can't remember the date on the letter and online reviews only make coy references to "after the Wall came down". Wright's ensuing interviews, which make up the bulk of Act 1, date only to the beginning of February, 1993.
But Mahlsdorf was profiled in taz as early as August 1989. Jürgen Lemke--a psychologist treated as a throwaway character within the play--had known her since the late 1970s and had interviewed for his 1989 book Ganz normal anders (translated into English only two years later as Gay voices from East Germany). By 1992, Mahlsdorf's autobiography (Ich bin meine eigene Frau, from which the title of the play is taken) had been published, German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim had made an eponymous film of it, and both were covered in a September Spiegel article. (Incidentally, the first place I remember reading about her.) I'm not sure when in 1992 she was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz by the German government, but Wright places this about a third of the way into Act 2--even though, as I've pointed out, almost all of Act 1 takes place in early 1993.
In short, although Wright never claims to be the first to discover his subject, it is easy to see how someone who wasn't following the German press in the early 90s could get that impression. In fact, that's just what happened to my viewing companion. This also made Act 2 somewhat less interesting for me than for him, since it covered events I already knew about rather than delving more into Mahlsdorf's recollections of her past, with which I was only fleetingly acquainted, or the changes wrought on her by sudden celebrity, which don't come out in the play at all but are widely reported by people who knew her personally. With his aforementioned dismissive treatment of Lemke, Wright misses some chances to underscore the ambiguities he wishes to explore, since incidents related in his interviews--such as Mahlsdorf's supposed murder of her father--were absent from those conducted by Lemke only a few years earlier.
This is another things which makes the second act frustrating: Many German characters are introduced, but more as figures of fun than opportunities to comment intelligently on the contradictions of Mahlsdorf's character. The decision to give them all German accents contributes to this. The low point is a sequence depicting Mahlsdorf's appearance on a German talk show. The satiric contrast between Mahlsdorf's prim demeanour and the host's flippant attitude is rich--particularly when the former goes on to relate in detail the neo-Nazi attack on her garden party--but it goes on too long and then Wright squanders its impact with a cheap joke, the host's reference to the next guest as "American zinging zenzation David Hasselhoff!"
I appreciate Wright's challenge--he has to depict Germans speaking English, Germans speaking German, Americans speaking English, and Americans speaking German all in such a way that the audience can follow without the use of visual crutches, like supertitles or Doonesbury's inventive use of parentheses. His solutions is to have:
- Germans speak English with a German accent and some German words or phrases, regardless of whether they are supposed to be speaking English or German
- Americans speak English
- Americans speak German (generally with strong accents but surprisingly good grammar)
(On a side note, Mays' accents, although generally good, are somewhat overdone. In particular, he overuses [z]. Standard German has [z] for all initial s's, but Mays often inappropriately uses it word-internally. He has Mahlsdorf say "Weisensee" (lit. "sea of sages") for Weissensee ("White Lake", a neighbourhood in East Berlin) and "a[z]ociation", even though (1) German has the word Assoziation, pronounced [a%sotsja"tsjo:n] and (2) this contrasts with asozial ([azo"tsjal]) meaning "asocial, antisocial"). She also pronounces the name of another neighbourhood, Prenzlauer Berg, with a [z] even though German has [ts] here, as it does for virtually every case of orthographic z.)
Or am I just being too sensitive to American caricatures of German culture? Wright's not writing a thesis, after all. There's nothing wrong with injecting some comedy and Wright doesn't spare his alter ego from looking foolish and comic at times. I just feel that, overall, it distracts more than it entertains. And distraction runs the risk both of diminishing the impact of the play and trivialising the events it portrays--such as when reference to Stasi atrocities produced guffaws from some members of the audience.
Overall, I was surprised how removed I felt from the proceedings. I'm not sure how much to attribute that to physical distance (although the sightlines were excellent), to the shortcomings of Wright's script, or to the nature of Mahlsdorf herself, who is so dispassionate in her relations of events that Lemke diagnosed her autistic. Even the most provocative questions don't seem to rile her, which makes it hard for them to have a deep impact on the audience either.
[*] Note for
niemandsrose: It strikes me that Marks and Wright have not only different intonation patterns and such but different Southern accents as well, which seems bizarre for two "childhood friends". I'd be curious if anyone in your biz has heard Mays' performance and what they thought of it on this score.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
lots of subtopics
Plus, yo, acting. Lots of audience members haven't got a fine-tuned ear and need broader distictions made for them, and it's a big house, as you say. Using the vocal equivalent of painting broad strokes with primary colors is a valid and useful technique here, since no amount of authenticity would be worth even a moment of the audience wondering "wait...who is he being again now?"
There's no real average audience member for this kind of show. I've (seen it twice and) heard from people who dug it based on their knowledge of German culture, gay culture, fascist psychology, architectural preservation, Weimar culture, acting, lighting design, and presentational aesthetics/contemporary performance.
All that said, I loved the show, but you know, I did have one such moment as you had where I found something distracting, but I knew it was me and my ear, and that it didn't matter a whit to anyone else in the audience: during the presentation of the Medal of Honor, the "croud applause and cheering" sound cue was clearly a stock sound from a sound effects library, and the cheering was very very American-sounding.
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I didn't care for the play either, I had the same problem which this I did with Quills...you remember, the Disney film about Marquis DeSade? I don't need my sexual revolutionaries desexualized!
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