"I Am My Own Wife," Returns With a New Question for a New Era

The acclaimed play I Am My Own Wife, which left a lasting impression on Korean audiences 12 years ago, is set to return to the stage with a renewed sense of urgency. This time, the production goes beyond examining a single individual and instead confronts society's impulse to classify, define, and categorize human beings.

The Doosan Art Center announced that I Am My Own Wife will serve as the final production of Doosan Humanities Theater 2026: New Taxonomy, running from June 24 to July 12 at Space111.

I Am My Own Wife. Photo by Doosan Art Center.

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Doug Wright, the play is based on the life of the real-life German figure Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. The work received both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play and has been widely recognized as one of the defining theatrical works of its generation.

In Korea, the play was first introduced through Doosan Humanities Theater's 2013 season Big History, earning widespread praise from both critics and audiences. At the time, actor Ji Hyun Jun drew acclaim for portraying dozens of characters within a single production, winning both the Dong-A Theatre Award and the Korea Theatre Awards' Best New Actor honor.

For the new production, Ji Hyun Jun returns to the stage alongside actor Baek Seok Kwang, who will offer a new interpretation of Charlotte. Director Kang Ryang Won, who led the original production, also returns.

At the center of I Am My Own Wife stands a single performer. Yet the world created on stage is anything but simple. One actor moves fluidly among 35 different roles, portraying Charlotte, playwright Doug Wright, witnesses, acquaintances, and figures from across different eras. As conflicting memories and perspectives accumulate, audiences find themselves moving further away from certainty and easy definitions.

The production directly engages with the central theme of New Taxonomy, the overarching topic of this year's Doosan Humanities Theater program. Rather than presenting Charlotte merely as an unusual individual or historical curiosity, the play examines the life of a transgender woman who survived both Nazi Germany and socialist East Germany, while also becoming a collector, historian, and survivor.

Through her story, the production raises a fundamental question:

Can a human being ever be fully explained by a single label?

The more audiences attempt to understand Charlotte through familiar categories such as gender, ideology, historical period, or social role, the more fragile those categories begin to appear. The play persistently reveals how easily attempts to classify another person can fail.

Accessibility has also been expanded for the new production. Services include sign language interpretation, live captioning, touch tours, Korean-language subtitle descriptions, and wheelchair-accessible seating. Special performances featuring sign language interpretation and pre-show touch tours will also be available.

Meanwhile, Doosan Humanities Theater continues its annual tradition of connecting theater, exhibitions, and lectures around a shared intellectual theme. This year's focus, New Taxonomy, explores the systems, boundaries, and classifications through which society attempts to understand human identity.

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