Wherefore art thou, Mae Cutrona?

Wherefore art thou, 
Mae Cutrona?

You sure you don’t want to sit in the sun here?  Like a spotlight.

A spotlight.

We’ll trade seats. No, we’ll literally reconfigure the space.

(Mae and Caroline move furniture.)

This is like a talk show. “On the air.”

Okay, your face is in the sun now, we can begin. What is your name?

Are you recording?

Yeah.

Cool. Um. My name is Mae Cutrona.

You can speak up. We gotta hear.

My name is Mae Cutrona.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Now I’m in the sun too.

Where are you from Mae Cutrona?

I’m from the greater Boston area.

Where specifically?

West Roxbury. 20 minutes from here.

Where do you go to school?

I go to school at Muhlenberg College in Allentown Pennsylvania.

And you’re gonna be a senior, right?

I am gonna be a senior.

So, Shakespeare…

Shakespeare.

What attracted you to this program?

Well I really wanted to take part in a program that wasn’t purely, um classwork. Um, since I had done, I had gone to Shakespeare & Company last year and had done an intensive which was primarily text analysis class and movement and that jazz.

I am in this program…it offered a lot of performance opportunities between the full production we’re doing, the understudying, and uh, the Greenshow work.

Did you do Shakespeare at Muhlenberg?

Uh, well, my first experience with Shakespeare was like…was Shakespeare & Company a year ago, and when I went abroad to Italy—

You went abroad?

Yup. In the fall. Last fall. We did some Shakespeare in Italy when we were abroad. A commedia style program, we did some Shakespeare there. And then I took, uh, a Shakespeare course at my school last semester. So it’s been a lot of Shakespeare.

Can you tell me more about Italy?

It’s very warm in Italy.

Had you ever been before?

Yes, I had been there twice before. Uh huh, I’m spoiled. Don’t put that in. Um, yeah, I had been there twice before and um, we it was, a very small school called Commedia De’llarte. Many different schools go there.

Tell me more.

Yeah, I’m trying to. I’m trying to think what’s cool…it was in Tuscany, um and we lived in a villa, so we had the entire villa and did rehearsals, we had three studio spaces or something like that and we were um like a walk away from downtown which was a historic center of Arezzo which is um, about an hour outside of Florence. We’d take the train into Florence.

We did a lot of commedia styling, voice and movement and a lot of um, contact improv, uh, we made our own masks actually, commedia masks made out of leather.

Did you like, make a character?

Yeah you, there are stock characters so I made Alichino, which is the servant.

His name?

Alichino, or Nikki.

I’ve never left the country before. That’s one of my biggest regrets now being done with school. Um, wow, so you were there for an entire semester. And now you’re going into your senior year at Muhlenberg?

Yeah.

So what is your favorite Shakespeare play?

(Pause)

Everyone keeps thinking too hard about it.

I don’t know.

Just trust your gut.

I don’t have a gut.

You have an impulse.

I don’t. I don’t. Cause I like, none of the plays are just perfect. They all have really great points and really awful points. I like this one scene from Antony and Cleopatra that I did recently and it just, I love it so much, then the rest of the play it’s like whatever. It’s, um…

Like, if you had to go pick one play…

Can I pick like a role?

Well, that’s the next question.

Okay then, I’ll pick a play.

Well, maybe, I know like, for me, what’s the first one I’d wanna read right now…do you have one?

Hamlet. Just because it’s so good.

How many times have you read Hamlet?

Uh, once?

Perfect.

I’ve seen the play a bunch of times, but I think I read it once for um, my Shakespeare on Screen class.

Shakespeare on Screen?

Yeah. That was my first exposure to actually. It was a class at my school and…

Starring Kenneth Branaugh?

We saw one Kenneth Branaugh, no, we didn’t even watch the whole thing, it was too painful. Um. We watched a bunch of more recent movies um, like Julie Taymor’s Titus.

Um, so, who’s your favorite character?

To play? Oh god. Um, sorry this is like deep questioning.

Highly disturbing questioning.

Um, just trying to think, plays. Lady Anne, I guess.

From Richard?

Yeah, Richard III. Yeah. I guess. There’s just so many. That’s the first one that comes to mind.

Good. So, if you had a favorite experience here so far, what would it be, and why? Specific.

Uh the day that, it was a Sunday, it was Sunday and we had a open response session and it was just everyone sharing their monologues um, cause it was right before auditioning time, so everyone was working on monologues and it was great to see everyone’s work and sometimes it was feedback and sometimes it was coaching and it was just the point where we were seeing everyone in their element in the piece that they connected most with and it was um, amazing to watch.

Did you share a piece?

I did.

What piece?

I did Julia’s Letter.

The ripping of the letter.

Now, do you want to share the monologue. You can choose any monologue, at all, to share.

I guess I’ll do Cleo.

I know I know the monologue, I just forget the first line.

So have you ever gotten a piece of advice that has stayed with you? That you’re willing to share?

I’m sure I’ve gotten advice I’ve taken at least once in my life. Um. Does it have to be in regards to anything in particular?

No. Anything you carry with you, be reminded of, what is it?

Well, in regard to Shakespeare text, the thing that’s helped me most with working and trying to figure out the material is something I um, my advisor told me, famous quote, is to make it make sense.

I remember that Sunday. Thank you Mae Cutrona.