Michael Ayers is about to embrace his greatest theatrical challenge yet, taking on not one, but 38 roles in his upcoming performance of Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife.
Ayers, a senior, has demonstrated a flair for the dramatic since early childhood. His father is a professional actor and a theater professor at Western Carolina University.
"I've always been going to see him in plays, or being the stand-in four-year-old in plays he was in," Ayers said.
One of his more memorable childhood productions was The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged presented by the Western Carolina Stage Company. In the show, he was able to work with a cast of much older and more experienced professional actors.
As a freshman, Ayers snagged the title role in Hoof 'n' Horn's production of Pippin, an auspicious start to his theatrical career at Duke. Since then, he has taken a vast array of theater and dance courses, concentrating more recently upon pronunciation and dialect. Ayers, a North Carolina native, slips easily back into the charming Southern twang he consciously avoids in his work as an actor.
"Theater beats a Southern accent out of you," he said.
In describing a transition from generally upbeat musicals to more serious drama, Ayers points to his role in last spring's production of The Special Prosecutor as one of his most significant and enriching.
The Special Prosecutor, Theater Studies Professor Johanna McAuliffe's adaptation of Nikolay Gogol's play The Inspector General, allowed Ayers to take on what he called a great role in Russian literature that one normally doesn't get to play until age 35.
However, Ayers now stands on the brink of his greatest artistic triumph yet. For his senior honors thesis in theater studies, Ayers will perform all 38 parts in I Am My Own Wife, Doug Wright's Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The show chronicles the playwright's investigation of Charlotte von Malsdorf, a German transvestite and survivor of both the Nazi and Communist regimes.
The work explores the significance of truth in governments built on deception and manipulation.
"Doug Wright discovers this guy and wants him to be this gay superhero, and it turns out that in order to survive he was pretty clearly a member of the Statzi," Ayers said. "The real conflict of the show is trying to figure out if he really is this infallible superhero and also, does it matter?"
John Clum, professor of theater studies and English described the show to Ayers as a full play where they decided to make one man play every part.
The eccentric, disjointed set mirrors add to the schizophrenic quality inherent in such a production. The show is staged "in the round"-the audience seating is essentially built into the set, creating an intimacy bordering on claustrophobia.
Within this setting, Ayers succeeds in crafting nearly 40 distinct characters with virtually no costume or makeup variation.
"We've had to invent ways to distinguish characters," Ayers said, describing physical quirks and speech impediments. "It's like a system of levers and pulleys trying to place your voice correctly."
Yet Ayers is able to navigate this system with the finesse and charisma of a professional. Some are simply born to perform.
I Am My Own Wife will be presented in Sheafer Theater Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.