Jeremy Crutchley impresses in I am My Own Wife

Jeremy Crutchley impresses in I am My Own Wife

Jeremy Crutchley is a master artist and I am at a loss to describe his skill in enlivening Doug Wright's script of I Am My Own Wife. All superlatives seem weak as applied to Jeremy Crutchley's performance. He brought to life the fascinating life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, taking her part, as well as the thirty or so other roles of those who had touched her life. Each character, however fleeting, was played with such completeness of gesture, accent, focus, intelligence and sensitivity as to be absorbing, compelling and utterly credible.

Crutchley's performance was wonderfully supported by Dicky Longhurst's design, Mannie Manim's lighting and excellent sound track by Warrick Sony. Janice Honeyman's sure direction has created a piece that is all that theatre should be.

Doug Wright, the playwright, wrote of Charlotte: “I wanted to write a paean to someone I thought was a hero and she stunned me because she turned out to be a human being.” The script does ample justice to the complexity of Charlotte's character and is as much a story of Wright's relationship with her as it is about her life. Did this idiosyncratic transvestite murder her father and betray her friend to the Stasi while remaining charming, grounded and even coy? These questions are some of the fascinations of a very different life that was made close and human to us in a truly superb performance of I Am My Own Wife.

I am My Own Wife runs at the Baxter till the 1 August, Monday-Saturday at 19:30
Tickets: Mondays R55 I Tuesday-Thursday R110 Friday and Saturday R120.