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March 18, 2011
A link in the chain of tradition
Mishelle Cuttler plays a lead role in Chekhov’s Wild Honey.
TOVA G. KORNFELD
It is graduation time at the University of British Columbia and students are looking ahead to the future both with fear and excitement. These include the several Jewish students in the graduating class of the bachelor of fine arts theatre program. One of those theatre students is the North Shore’s Mishelle Cuttler (second from the right). 
The Independent spoke with Cuttler before a rehearsal of her swan-song production at the Frederic Wood Theatre. Theatre UBC is presenting Wild Honey, an unfinished and posthumously discovered early Anton Chekhov play adapted by playwright Michael Frayn (Noises Off, Democracy and Copenhagen). (The Independent featured Chekhov, the father of the modern short story, in the Feb. 5, 2010, issue.) Wild Honey premièred at London’s National Theatre in 1984 and ran on Broadway in 1986 with Kim Cattrall of Sex and the City fame playing one of the female leads.
Twenty-three-year-old Cuttler comes from artistic stock – her mother Elaine is an artist and musician and her lawyer father Gerry has been known to sing a song or two. Cuttler was homeschooled for her elementary years and then attended public secondary school.
“By the time I was in Grade 6, I had already done seven Shakespearean plays with the Homespun Theatre Troupe, a home-schooled group of thespians. I knew that I wanted a career in acting and pursued that through school and university,” she said.
Aside from her acting, Cuttler has a wanderlust and has been fortunate to travel extensively. “I always wanted to travel but I also wanted to combine that with some type of giving back to the community. I went to Nicaragua in Grade 11 with Global Education, a group that works to raise funds to build libraries and provide opportunities for the underprivileged. That was an eye-opening experience for me as a 17-year-old.”
Cuttler also traveled to Israel on the Birthright program and found it “a unique way to connect with her roots.” Last summer, she biked across Europe from Amsterdam to Belgrade with 13 other cyclists, on a trip organized by Global Agents for Change to fundraise for their microcredit lending program. “This organization gives people in developing countries small amounts of money so that they can learn to do business on their own,” Cuttler explained. “I was very proud to raise $2,000 myself for that. I had heard about the group and its mission and I knew that I wanted to participate in the ride. I thought that bike touring through Europe and raising money for a wonderful cause was a combination that could not go wrong.”
Cuttler is also an accomplished musician and has completed Grade 10 of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Her resumé includes a Wrigley’s gum commercial for television, acting, and musical directing for various productions, including this year’s UBC cabaret production of Romeo and Juliet, for which she learned to play the accordion. She also served as musical director for Amazing Grace in 2009 and UBC’s production of The Laramie Project, directed by local talent Nicola Cavendish. “Working with her was amazing,” said Cuttler. “Because she is both an actor and a director, I learned so much from her approach to acting.”
This summer, Cuttler will helm the musical side of another production of Romeo and Juliet, at Vancouver’s Pacific Theatre, and she will work with the Seven Tyrants Theatre Society in its production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Szechuan, which will play at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese gardens.
When asked if her Judaism plays a role in any of her career ambitions, she said, “As Jews, we come from a background with a passionate culture and a rich history – although often cloaked in pain and suffering – that has inspired artists over the years, whether they sing, act, dance or write. I feel that I am part of that chain of culture and tradition.”
Her role in Wild Honey is as a young and naïve stay-at-home wife to Platonov, a philandering scoundrel of a husband, who knows he’s a cad, but just can’t help it where women are concerned. In this case, there are three other women. The setting is a forested Russian estate one hot summer night – a mad evening under the Russian moon – and involves several drunk characters running around in the forest playing elaborate cat and mouse games. Promotional materials characterize the play as “swinging between the polar opposites of melodrama and farce, and shaking them into an intoxicating cocktail,” perhaps more vernacularly described as a mix of low morals and way too much vodka.
Cuttler loves the play. “It is as much about Michael Frayn as it is about Chekhov. Frayn took seven hours of drama and condensed it into a two-hour play. It is rich in text and powerful, but very accessible to everyone. It is reflective of humanity and our human faults. It is farcical, in that we can laugh at these faults, but there is also a tragic element that is very powerful and revealing. If you come and see the play you will have a great time and you will laugh, and you will be touched and you will be surprised.”
David Kaye, Eric Freilich and Sarah Goodwill round out the other Jewish community members appearing in the cast. Cuttler, for her part, is sad but excited about this her last school production and is looking forward to a career in the arts.
Wild Honey runs until March 26, 7:30 p.m., at Frederic Wood Theatre at the University of British Columbia. Visit theatre.ubc.ca or call 604-822-2678 for tickets.
Tova G. Kornfeld is a local writer and lawyer.
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