REVIEW

One-actor shows are often a tricky affair, especially when it requires the one actor to take on a number of different roles.

But Bruce Cromer manages to create 30 characters with their own voice and body in Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife.”

The main character is Charlotte von Mahlsdorff, born a man but survived both the Nazis and the Soviet oppression of East Germany as a woman.

When the Berlin Wall falls, Charlotte is thrust into the international spotlight and gets the attention of playwright Doug Wright, who appears as a character in this play, which is about his gathering background material to write it.

Charlotte is living in a museum, literally. She leads guided tours of the artifacts that she had collected, mostly from the period known, ironically enough, as “the gay ‘90s.” As the play opens, she speaks to a group of tourists, then to a reporter from the U.S. News. She tells him that the tourists “come to look at me, but some of them look at the furniture.”

She has rescued antiques from the oppressive and destructive governments she’s lived under, including the bar and furniture from a homosexual cabaret, which she recreated and operated in her basement for a time.

But as the events of the play transpire, her past -- especially her connection to the police for whom she served as an informant in regard to the illegal sale of antiques.

Cromer again proves himself to be one of the region’s finest actors as he moves seamlessly between characters, which include the playwright himself, the friend that Charlotte apparently turned into the police and a host of reporters, soldiers and other incidental characters.

Cromer, a Human Race resident artist and associate professor at Wright State University, has a wealth of experience to put into this role of a lifetime. He has appeared in 19 plays with The Human Race alone in the past two decades, with major roles in everything from “Macbeth” and “Angels in America” to “The Drawer Boy” and “I Hate Hamlet.” Most recently, he received a DayTony for his performance as Prospero in “The Tempest,” a role he will revive later in the season with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival.

how to go
WHAT: “I Am My Own Wife” by Doug Wright.
WHERE: The Human Race Theatre Company, The Loft Theatre, 138 North Main St., Dayton.
WHEN: Through Feb. 4.
COST: $28-$34.
MORE INFO: (888) 228-3630; ticketcenterstage.com.
 

A version of this story originally ran in the Go! section of the JournalNews, Hamilton, Ohio.