The Oakland Theater Hits a Homerun

I usually try to vary topics for the Mark Knows It All blog. I know I wrote a local arts column last week, which for people not from this area, and some that are, is probably B-O-R-I-N-G! But sometimes things just need to be said, and this is one of those of times.

The Oakland Theater is among my favorite venues in the area for live theater. Its intimate space lends itself to smaller, edgier pieces. Many of them are controversial dealing with subjects that would make some feel uncomfortable. But the productions are ALWAYS top notch quality, well conceived and well produced. Some of the productions don’t appeal to me, and I don’t go to see them. But many do, and they just keep getting better and better. Those of us who enjoy theater are fortunate to have these kinds of offerings available to this area.

Over the past two weekends, the Oakland hit a home run with its production of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play by Doug Wright “I Am My Own Wife.” Not only was the Oakland smart enough to choose this moving piece, it was even smarter to collaborate with Youngstown’s own James McClellan, who gave a bravura performance in this one man tour de force. Folks, Jim was on stage alone for two hours performing more than 40 parts all by his lonesome. It was a stunning, perfectly balanced performance.

The play is the true story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (born Lothar Berfelde in 1928) , a gay German transvestite who lived through the Nazis and then the Communists and eventually won the German Medal of Honor after the fall of the Berlin wall. While living in East Berlin during the cold war, “she” operated a private museum of things she collected over the years. Included was a gay bar that was dismantled when the communists moved to tear it down. She quietly reassembled it in her basement where gays secretly congregated to avoid Communist persecution.

McClellan, dressed as Charlotte for almost all of the performance, moves between major and minor characters following a story line of the play’s actual author trying to write a report about Charlotte’s life through a series of live interviews. At the end of the first act, the audience is left quiet as it contemplates the hardships Charlotte said she had to endure at the hands of the Nazis, the Communists and her own abusive father whom she claims to have killed to protect her mother and siblings.

But as the second act opens, Charlotte’s entire life story becomes suspect as information is discovered about her possible cooperation as an informant with the Stasi, the East German Secret Police, leading to the imprisonment and death of several of her contemporaries. The play never resolves the issue as to which parts of her moving life story were true, which were not, and did she or didn’t she make a deal with the devil. Did that deal enable her to ramp up her massive collection of artifacts in her private museum from Jewish homes under the Nazis and from homes of people who disappeared from Communist East Germany?

In the role of the author of the play, McClellan portrays his difficulty coming to terms with what he discovered, stating whether or not Charlotte's life as she told it was true, he and all of us needed it to be true…because the alternative was unfathomable.

James McClellan is a well known entertainer in the area, appearing in numerous productions in just about every venue in town, but primarily for his musical talent and beautiful voice. He and his brother and sister are better known as The McClellan’s, a vocal trio known throughout the Mahoning Valley for their outstanding programs of contemporary Christian and light pop music.Even though I have seen many of Jim’s other performances, this one was beyond the pale. This is real talent, and I was blown away.

So cheers to the Oakland for giving us the opportunity to see this outstanding, thought provoking play. Cheers to James McClellan for giving us a Broadway caliber performance. If there is ever a reprise, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is, go and see this one.

Another reason why it’s good to live in Youngstown!