Mary Mott is a writer and monologist who lives in Stockbridge, Mass. Two years ago, she performed a one-woman show presented by the Berkshire Theatre Group at The Unicorn Theatre (in Stockbridge), and is now following that up with another show beginning Friday, Oct. 29. Mott was inspired to write “Butter to the Edges” after her most recent “horrifying” birthday, and in it she explores her feelings on the subject of growing older. “We need to bring aging out of the closet in a positive way, so people feel better talking about it,” she says. But fear not a depressing evening; Mott does it all with great humor and a lot of laughter. I worked for 25 to 30 years in advertising in New York and San Francisco. I started off as a writer, and moved back into writing later. I did a newspaper column and radio show. About ten years ago, when my husband and I moved here from Sun Valley, Idaho, I kept writing and had the opportunity to read a number of my pieces. They’re all nonfiction about the way I look at life, which is a little weird. I was approaching this god-awful birthday. When that happens, you can either hide and wait the whole thing out, or you can be forward with it. So I decided, I’m going to talk about it. I’ll write how I feel about this birthday, this aging. No one wants to talk about it. You don’t want to admit to all those things. I was reaching around for a theme for this aging thing, and watching my husband having toast. He puts a little scrape of butter in the middle. I said, “you have to butter to the edges,” and realized that’s a good theme for life. You can’t just butter in the middle, you have got to go to the edges with it. There’s so much ahead; you have to keep buttering. In the show I talk about facelifts and full body lifts. About the fact that I can no longer squat, and what that means. How awful it is to have someone take your picture, and my technique for taking a good one. I talk about knees, senior rates, passion, life and looking ahead. I try to get very specific with these little things that happen to you as you get older. As I’m doing the show, I’m decorating a cake and drinking a lot of wine. It becomes a conversation with the audience, and it’s a lot of fun.
