Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife
Veteran actor Stephen Ouimette says William Shakespeare's the key to the one-man show.
Do you think I Am My Own Wife is more of a narrative?
I think it flips back and forth. There is direct address where you make the audience the other person you are talking to, but then there is also narrative where you play scenes where you put the fourth wall up and play it as if they weren't there. So there are both. Imagine trying to keep all that straight in your head.
How did you get yourself from one character to another? I know you are known for voice work, so is it more voice inflection or is it a combination of a slight movement or cue words to get yourself from one phase to another?
I am going to start with Shakespeare. It's the same thing. We all think that the text of Shakespeare is the most important thing and that's true. It is the text, but even more important is the thoughts that spawned those words. So it's really the thoughts that are in people's heads that make them have to say those fantastic lines.
It is the same thing with Doug Wright. If you get the thoughts correct, you won't have to worry about the mechanics - oh, did I raise my eyebrow for that character or does this character have this kind of tic or physical stance? If you get the thinking behind it right, the rest will just fall into place.
Do you have a favourite part of the show?
I think it changes every night. Because Charlotte is such an enigma, you do see different aspects of her every time, or every show, you think oh, there's something I hadn't seen, or there's another thing and there's something else, and it's got to be allowed to have that sort of breathing room. Each performance has got to be slightly different. Not vastly different, but slightly. So, I do find out something new about her every-time we go through it. I say we ... (laughing) I mean me.
Do you play his parents as well? Lothar Berfelde was very young when he supposedly kills his father with a rolling pin. That's heavy. Charlotte-to-be was brave and I guess that started at a young age.
Yeah, I play Tante Louise [a lesbian aunt who had a major influence on Charlotte], the mother and the father who - as you know, we'll never know whether this is true or not - Charlotte says she (as Lothar Berfelde) bludgeoned him to death with a rolling pin when she was 15 years old. Pretty horrific.
Charlotte Von Malhsdorf never saw this show did she?
No, she died a couple years before the play and I don't know what she would have thought. There is a documentary about her, but I purposely did not watch it because I was terrified of falling into the trap of wanting to impersonate her. I don't think that is always interesting theatrically. I might have done a bang-on imitation but if other people had seen the documentary it wouldn't have made any sense theatrically so I resisted watching it. I may hunt it down and look at it when we are done.
What's the one thing about playing Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf that will stay with you?
I guess it has got to be - I mean, if I was say one thing, it would be - just completely own who you are.
