L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2016 www.italoamericano.org 6 E ating Pasta Off the Floor is such an intriguing title for a play that it demand- ed L'Italo-Americano interview the play's creator and solo per- former, Maria Grazia Affinito. Affinito had the idea to create this solo theater piece when she joined a writing circle. "My writ- ing was dominated by vivid char- acters and their conflicts. Fellow writers commented that they could easily see the material come to life on stage and I was urged to tell my story with my acting skills." She describes the play as "a story of growing up in a poor immigrant family, plagued by violence and trauma, while facing the generational conflicts unique to mothers and their daughters, conflicts between an old fash- ioned Italian mother and an Americanized daughter. The audience is introduced to what at first glance appears to be the stereotypical image of an Italian mother; loud, boisterous and quick to break out in song. The daughter is often embarrassed and tries to manage the mother's behavior. This all appears to be good fun, but what lies under- neath is a sadder truth to what motivates our behaviors, and how each character, the mother and daughter, have dealt with trau- matic struggles." And when asked what inspired the creative title, Eating Pasta Off the Floor, Affinito said, "It refers to a scene that occurs in the play. When work-shopping segments of the play, I was considering several titles. While returning from a rehearsal break, just before a particular scene, I com- mented that I needed to pick up rehearsal from the eating pasta off the floor scene. Just as I made that reference, I knew that the play revealed its title to me." Affinito explains that the mes- sage goes beyond cultural bound- aries. "The title makes references to the Italian staple-pasta- but in a skewed setting-the floor. After all, why would anyone be eating anything off the floor? Just as in our families, there is identifica- tion to what is similar and famil- iar and yet there are intrinsic dif- ferences. Immigrant families will understand the displaced and or awkward feeling, where they are the odd person out, or the weird one for eating something differ- ent, or sounding different. The show brings forth what we can relate to as having some sense of familiarity with, and yet still not really belonging anywhere, coun- try of origin or the adopted coun- try." Affinito describes how a per- formance of Madame Butterfly inspired her work. "My mother and godmother took me to see a performance of Madame Butterfly when I was eight years old. When she sang her last aria, 'Un Bel di, vedremo,' and then kills herself, I got up, and ran to the stage screaming 'No!' I was incon- solable. After, I was taken back stage to see that she was not real- ly dead. I said that I knew she was alive, but that the 'pain, the pain, it hurt so much.' From then on, my way to deal with pain and suf- fering was alleviated by singing." When asked why she chose to create the play as a solo perfor- mance, Affinito replied, "Friends and colleagues in the theater com- munity urged me to tell stories about growing up with my moth- er. The stories were eccentric yet touching, and dominated by dia- logue. I found myself acting out moments to my friends, in efforts to explain what had occurred the day before while visiting with my mother." Maria Grazia Affinito is a member of Actors' Equity Association from the San Francisco Bay Area. She has per- formed with various companies in the Bay Area and in several inde- pendent films. Her stage credits include Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (San Francisco Shakespeare Festival), Ana in Displaced (Marin Theater Company), and Nancy in Gaslight (California Conservatory Theater). Eating Pasta Off the Floor was devel- oped with David Ford at The Marsh theater in San Francisco. Her future projects include bringing Eating Pasta Off the Floor to as many audiences as possible. In the fall of 2016 she will be playing Queen Margaret in Margaret of Anjou with ThoseWomenProductions in Berkeley and plans to return to writing another installment of the story between mother and daugh- ter, which may focus on her mother's poetry and her battle with cancer. Eating Pasta Off the Floor At The Marsh through May 15 1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco For tickets and detailed infor- mation visit, http://themarsh.org /uncategorized/maria-affinito. Maria Grazia Affinito's web- site is at http://mariagraziaac- tress.com. Eating Pasta Off the Floor: A solo theater piece written & performed by Maria Grazia Affinito Maria Grazia Affinito, Eating Pasta Off the Floor. Photograph by Louis Pepin SAN FRANCISCO ITALIAN COMMUNITY CATHERINE ACCARDI

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