Had Canadian friends in last week, and when the temperature hits 100 degrees Canadians need air conditioning. So we went to the theater, 2 shows in one day: "I Am My Own Wife" and "Wicked." Astonishingly, both are concerned with the same theme, a theme that obsesses me: how do you know what truth is, when winners write history? Today I'll report on "I Am My Own Wife," tomorrow on "Wicked."

In "Wife" the definition of 'winner' is extended to include 'survivor.' It's the story of an East German transvestite born in the 1930's who, in the playwright's words, "navigated a path between the world's two most oppressive regimes in a pair of high heels." The first act tells her story, as she relates it to the playwright in a series of visits and interviews. It's amazing and completely convincing and you're totally on her side when it's over. The second act reveals the places where other records, or earlier statements of her own, contradict that story and make her a considerably less admirable, even skeevy, figure. But in many places those records also contradict each other. The play asks how truth can be found from among all that, when some of what we've learned is sure to be false but we have no way to tell which is which. The play uses two brilliant devices. It's a one-man show, so that every character comes literally from the same place. And one of the main characters is the playwright. I know; sounds meta, sounds precious. It isn't. It brings home sharply how the storyteller inhabits the story, and how what truth gets found depends on who's looking.