Mahlsdorf noch einmal

Dómur um Ég er mín eigin kona frá Írlandi.

Sem minnir mig á að það fyrsta sem ég vissi um verkið var dómur eftir minn uppáhaldsmann, John Heilpern. Hann skilaði minnihlutaáliti eftir að verkið hafði hlotið Pulitzerverðlaunin og þótti sem afgreiðsla höfundar á siðferðisbrestum hetjunnar eyðileggja verkið. Dómurinn er ekki lengur aðgengilegur á netinu, en hér eru aðfinnslur Heilperns:

My emphasis is on Mr. Wright's starting point: the miracle of her survival. But he has only the mildest suspicions. "Now Charlotte," he says eventually in the measured tones of an admirer who's praying all turns out well. "I heard in the 70's the Stasi came to you, and offered to treat you very well if you offered to give the names and addresses of the people who frequented your museum. I heard they actually promised you a car. Is that right?"

Whereupon Charlotte cautiously confesses that she signed a document from the Ministry of State Security agreeing to work as a secret Stasi agent. "And you had to sign it?" says Doug, hoping against hope.

"Isignedit,"sheanswers ambiguously.

That ought to be enough for the dramatist to look at his heroine in a very different light. She's admitted to having been an informer for the most feared secret police since the Gestapo. "Sometimes you must howl with wolves," Charlotte explains-a feeble justification, which the dramatist makes no comment on.

Mr. Wright-or Doug, as he's referred to in the play-won't confront the truth about her. As the first act comes to a close, he learns the German press has got its hands on the Stasi file. The evidence against Charlotte couldn't be clearer: She was a "willing" and "enthusiastic" informer for four years. The museum was a drop-off point for the Stasi.

How does Mr. Wright take this latest, damning evidence? "Charlotte," Doug says at the start of Act II, "I'm afraid-for me-your Stasi file is an exercise in frustration." An exercise in what ? And by then-for me-the play was an exercise in avoidance. But look what happens next.

We learn about Charlotte's relationship with a black-market clock dealer, Alfred Kirschner. When Kirschner is caught by the authorities and jailed, Charlotte explains that he begged her to testify against him to save her own skin. And surely by now we can't be expected to buy it. But the apologetic Mr. Wright hopes otherwise.

"Charlotte," he says to her, mustering his courage, "I know this is difficult. And I know I'm an American from thousands of miles away … . " (Ah, that American-not the ugly one, the simple-minded one from the other side of the moon.) "I didn't even really know what the Cold War was until it ended," he continues. "So I've no right to sit in judgment. But about Alfred Kirschner …. "

Mr. Wright, a word in your ear: Do sit in judgment. It's time . If, by your mid-30's, you didn't know what the Cold War was until it ended, where had you been? That the line gets another cheap laugh from the audience is one thing. Couldn't you at least have troubled to read a book about the period before trotting off to see the sainted Charlotte in Germany?

And so I lost all confidence in the play and Mr. Wright's slack, self-serving muddle and hero worship. I didn't see Charlotte von Mahlsdorf as a uniquely fascinating, "quaint" survivor at all. At best, she's a tired, evasive footnote to history who happens to be a transvestite; at worst, she's a collaborator with blood on her hands.

Fyrir mér kemst sagan sem sögð er í verkinu til skila í allri sinni siðferðilegu óreiðu þrátt fyrir vandræði höfundarins, sem ég er í sjálfu sér sammála greiningu Heilperns á, að viðbættu orðinu Narcissism sem dómurinn í Guardian leggur í púkkið. Það hefði verið betra að hafa þennan heimska ameríkana utan verksins, en hann kemur ekki stórlega að sök. Að frádregnu innihaldinu er verkið skemmtileg þrautabraut fyrir flinkan leikara, og fyrst og fremst ætlað þeim sem hafa gaman af svoleiðis.

Sýningin í Iðnó er sýning Hilmis Snæs, ekki Dougs Wright.