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The Cutlass is a naval weapon popular with both sailors and pirates of the 18th and 19th century and was still being issued to sailors of the US navy as late as 1917. The blade on a cutlass is perhaps its most defining feature being single-edged, slightly curved, somewhere between 24 and 30 inches in length, and approximately 1 1/2 to 2 inches wide. The hilt consisted mainly of a knucklebow and guard that covered much of the hand and was often highly ornamented with decorations of a nautical theme.
See photos below.

The form of the Cutlass is a perfect development of its function. The blade needed to be short enough for close quarters combat amidst masts and rigging when boarding or defending a ship; hence its length. This short blade needed to be heavy enough to actually cause sufficient damage when striking an opponent as well as to be able to cut through tangled rigging in a storm or the enemy's grappling lines that sought to hold embattled ships together; hence its width and weight. The hilt needed to protect the hand without extensive quillons that could become entangled in the ship's rigging as well as offer a "steel fist" with which to strike an enemy in extreme close quarters.

Aluminum Cutlasses, From Left
(ALL blades are Aluminum* and 25"):

Simple cutlass, leather grip
Shell guard cutlass
Simple cutlass, wood grip
Bell guard cutlass

Aluminum Cutlass hilt close-ups

*ALUMINUM

Very popular for a number of years with the film industry, aluminum is now making its way onto stages and into classrooms all across the country. The main reason for its rising popularity, especially in movies, is the fact that an aluminum sword is much lighter than its steel counterpart and can be wielded with great speed. Another great selling point of aluminum weapons is that they don't rust, the bane of steel weapons. Aluminum is also quite easy to maintain; nicks are easily filed down with a few strokes of a hand file.

The main "downside" to using aluminum weapons is that ALL weapons used in conjunction with one another must be aluminum. Mixing one steel sword into a fight where all of the other weapons are aluminum will have much the same effect as putting one wolf into a "Sheep Only" nightclub. At the end of the night you will have one perfectly fine steel sword and a whole bunch of chewed up aluminum ones. This is particularly a problem in a rental business when you have no idea what sorts of other weapons a company will be mixing in with yours.
Another problem is one particular to live theatre that doesn't matter in the film industry because of a wonderful person called a foley artist. The foley artist is the person who adds in all of the cool "ching" and "sching" sounds that we hear in any good movie sword fight. Since live theatre has no such miracle worker we have to rely on the weapons themselves if we want this sound and, up until fairly recently, aluminum blades tended to only "clack."*
Many aluminum blades are now made that generate this ringing sound when struck together.

* Incidentally, this "ring" is not necessarily how "real" swords would sound, it is just what we are trained by movies to expect. A clacking sound would be just as, if not more, historically accurate.

"We will rent no weapon that we would not personally use ourselves."