By Tiera Lee
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Williamsburg native Cherelle Matthews stood center of four other Hamlets in Towson University’s Mainstage Theatre, a dimmed light cascaded over her brown skin and boxed braids as she demonstrated the theme of grief and revenge as Damned Hamlet.
The Shakespeare classic, Hamlet, which played at the Center for the Arts in late October, offered a bold interpretation in which Hamlet’s multiple personalities were divided among five roles cast with five actors. The modern-day spin on the age-old story maintained the facts that Hamlet, prince of Denmark, wanted to avenge his father’s murder at the hands of his uncle while incorporating technology.
Matthews was Damned Hamlet. Other Hamlets included Grieving, Dangerous Theatre, Righteous and Marauding. The latest technology fused with modern music, including Childish Gambino.
Weeks later, Matthews shared with The Baltimore Watchdog the process she experienced to successfully play her role.
“If the show starts at 8, that usually means our call time will be 6,” said Matthew. “When I wake up in the morning, I try to do as much relaxing as I can to prepare. I have to eat and make snacks, you know, especially with a three-hour show, and being there two hours before that, sitting there for five hours. My stomach will be growling on stage.”
Matthews recounted her time: “At 5:30, I like to walk because I know soon I’ll be trapped inside. Once we get there, 6’oclock is when warmups start so we all meet in the Mainstage Theatre, doing vocal warmups. We do lip trills and constant sounds and tongue twisters, stretch out our face, to make sure we can articulate our words… ESPECIALLY with Shakespeare.”
Matthews added that yoga, meditation, and music also are all part of the preliminary moments leading up to the show. This year is Matthews’ second time in a Mainstage production. She said she felt a shift in the temperature of her work.
“Being cast in this— I mean someone told me they came to see it three times because of me,” Matthews said. “Even my mom said ‘yeah Cherelle, I don’t know if you’re going to have any more time for your afternoons because you’re probably going to be cast in everything.’”
The support and praise for her performance provided reassurance for Matthews who first thought she had totally bombed the Hamlet audition and had not shown the depth she has.
Sam Pomerantz, a senior in the Bachelor of Fine Arts program, acted alongside Matthews as Horatio. He noted the differences in the original Hamlet and their performances.
“This was an emotional show because what we wanted to find were the stories within Hamlet,” said Pomerantz, “because there are so many that resonated with the audience. We had exercises with our director where we’d be given a prompt, of things we personally dealt with these things we can create.”
Pomerantz said he was excited to be directing the student studio production, which parallels the mainstage performances each semester.
“Cherelle performed excellently in the show,” he said. “Compared to what the other Hamlets were served, she did not get the best of the dialogue, but Cherelle made it interesting and riveting, captivating in her performance. She is driven, intense, and understanding of her craft, an all-around great performer.”
Matthews, a junior Acting Major in the BFA program, said she has been performing since her mother transferred her from a regular Williamsburg public school to a magnet performing arts school. At Towson, she spent time as a member of the Student Studio and as a Community Center assistant, which enabled her to development relationships with a variety of people who are influenced by her and the role of arts and culture.
Candace Poullard, a junior Communication Studies major, said she understands the importance of seeing and participating in performing arts. Poullard lived in on-campus housing where Matthews worked, building familiarity with the desk assistant.
“It may not be, but I think theatre should be important to a regular college student,” Poullard said. “Theatre is extremely impactful.”
Poullard said she enjoyed the new version of Hamlet.
“Since I knew nothing about Hamlet, I was pleasantly surprised to see a more modern take on this play,” she said. “I thought Damned Hamlet did a great job. She spoke in a way that the audience could understand her, projected her voice, and performed with emotions that made her portrayal of Hamlet, believable.”
Poullard added, “I think a large majority of people would benefit from seeing this play.”
For many college students, time management is a struggle. Timeliness is one of the key factors in Matthew’s life. Besides sticking to a lock-step time schedule on performance days, Matthews draws from her earlier experiences at the Williamsburg Magnet School.
“I had to take the bus from my regular school to that school,” Matthews said, explaining the immediate adjustments she made. “And there they did three plays a year.”
She continued: “I immediately auditioned. We had a thing called Dinner Theatre. Second graders couldn’t actually be in shows, but we did this thing where we’d give the audience food and things like that. I ate that up.”
“I knew then that I loved this. Sixth grade and seventh grade, I loved it, but I wasn’t feeling the faculty and they definitely weren’t feeling me,” she said. “I didn’t feel welcomed there. I still did things I could perform in.”
As an actor, Matthews pointed to defining moments that pushed her performances forward.
First was in high school “when one of my drama teachers from my elementary school transferred to my high school during my junior year,” she said. “She asked me why I wasn’t in the [drama] program but I had shifted my focus to playing basketball.”
“It was then that I realized I couldn’t be in shows and play basketball at the same time,” said Matthews. “So, I decided then to be in the program.”
Second was in college when Matthews realized “my driving force is not necessarily my parents, but mainly my parents. I don’t know why, but it feels good that they feel good.”
Years in the making, Matthews focus has been centralized on her gift. She said inspiration for each show lies in the show itself.
“The sole purpose is to do the show justice,” said Matthews. “Get this play on the stage and to do it well. I try to please the playwright, whether they’re living or dead — you know they had this show and these characters and the vision already in their mind. We can’t necessarily talk to the playwright; we can’t get their insight and all we have is the director.”
But Matthews added, “You can feel when a show isn’t good, when a person isn’t putting [his or her] all in [the] performance… But you can also feel when they are.”
Matthews described herself “as independent, determined, unfocused but not necessarily in an awful way, it’s not great but I’d say it’s because I’m open.”
Being an African American brings numerous challenges in theatre, she said.
“It might feel like a foreign concept, black people thriving in the Theatre Departments,” said Matthews. “I know in my high school, there were like five of us. It’s not even the department [faculty] but more of the students in the department.”
She continued, “Yeah I feel like I don’t belong, but it doesn’t bother me. I know I don’t belong. An example is that some theatre majors go to New York every summer to see a show; I’ve seen one show on Broadway my entire life. I personally don’t feel like I have to fit in.”
One habit that Matthews said inspires and encourages her is watching movies.
“I watch movies because my favorite actors are in them,” she said. “I want to be able to be in so many different genres and never be confined to what people think I should act in. Like the Angela Basset’s, the Zoe Saldana’s you know.”
Matthews said that developing relationships gives perceptive and insight into her beliefs.
Working along Matthews, Kendal Ballentine, a 21-year-old graduating senior, said she credits Matthews as a voice in this generation.
“Cherelle inspires me to be my truest self. From Cherelle I’ve learned to let my true personality shine through no matter what or who is watching,” said Ballentine.
She added, “From watching her art, and who she’s becoming, I’d think she lives by the motto of being as creative as you want to be. This shines through her authenticity. She is ambitious, creative, strong willed, helpful, and always considerate. I think a person who is just as creative as her and that needs some guidance would be drawn to her.”
Matthews said her goal is to be a positive force in her community and to not allow infrequent roles in the BFA program to dissuade or worry her.
“I don’t get any anxiety about it,” she said. “It feels good. I actually had a really fat drought last year. I was cast in the first show I auditioned for like the only freshman to get cast my freshman year.”
But then Matthews fortunes changed: “I was in that show and then didn’t get cast the first semester of my sophomore year, didn’t get cast the second semester of my sophomore year, so I was like this has me a little shaken up. I then auditioned for a student studio. It’s student lead, the only thing is I didn’t feel as rewarded.”
Today, however, Matthews said she began to realize how talented she is.
“Sometimes I feel I sell myself short,” she acknowledged. “But I do think I’m talented.”
Matthews explained, “Success to me is reaching and exceeding. It’s an ongoing cycle, you don’t just reach success and stop. Sometimes it may happen that way; sometimes people are lucky. But, I believe you’re not successful if you’re not doing something with the success you’ve gained up to that point. You should be constantly using your success to make an impact, whatever it may be.”
“Anytime I am acknowledged that’s success to me. I take every small shout out as success. This thing that I did encouraged that person to go out of their way to tell me that they enjoyed what I did. That’s success.”