About a week ago I came into rehearsal for Whistler in the Dark's production of Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, for which I am composing violence. Both sections of the script involve a play-within-a-play, (Hamlet and Macbeth, respectively). In one case it is a group of schoolboys putting on Hamlet at their school, in the other it is famous actors putting up an illicit performance of Macbeth in someone's home in a totalitarian regime. Both metatheatrical sections include the famous duels of the Shakespeare plays that their characters are putting on. Which means we are seeing an actor playing one character, who is in turn playing another character, who is in turn engaging in a duel. The task of a fight director in a case like this is not to choreograph the character of Hamlet per se, but to choreograph a schoolboy playing Hamlet. The character of Hamlet is an early-modern image of a Danish prince who would have had extensive training and familiarity with dueling. In a production of said play with professional actors, the fight director would be working to articulate the conflict of the duel within these (and other) parameters. The character in Dogg's Hamlet however, is a schoolboy playing said prince, which adds a whole other filter to the physicality of the fights. The movement must be believable for a schoolboy moreso than for a prince. And of course must remain safe for the actors, engaging for the audience, and continue to advance the story.
I'm posting here to put down some early thoughts about how stage combat that occurs "in quotes" is choreographed and perceived. Somewhere down the line I'll be expanding these thoughts into an academic paper.
About a week ago I came into rehearsal for Whistler in the Dark's production of Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth, for which I am composing violence. Both sections of the script involve a play-within-a-play, (Hamlet and Macbeth, respectively). In one case it is a group of schoolboys putting on Hamlet at their school, in the other it is famous actors putting up an illicit performance of Macbeth in someone's home in a totalitarian regime. Both metatheatrical sections include the famous duels of the Shakespeare plays that their characters are putting on. Which means we are seeing an actor playing one character, who is in turn playing another character, who is in turn engaging in a duel. The task of a fight director in a case like this is not to choreograph the character of Hamlet per se, but to choreograph a schoolboy playing Hamlet. The character of Hamlet is an early-modern image of a Danish prince who would have had extensive training and familiarity with dueling. In a production of said play with professional actors, the fight director would be working to articulate the conflict of the duel within these (and other) parameters. The character in Dogg's Hamlet however, is a schoolboy playing said prince, which adds a whole other filter to the physicality of the fights. The movement must be believable for a schoolboy moreso than for a prince. And of course must remain safe for the actors, engaging for the audience, and continue to advance the story.
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This past Monday I took part in a Small Theatre Alliance of Boston Open Mic Night at the Charlestown Working Theater. I brought in a section of a new full length play I'm working on called Burning Up the Dictionary, which I'm billing as "a story of language, love, lust and loss." I'll be having a round table of the entire thing at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City next month, so this was a great opportunity to test-drive a section of it in front of an audience and see how things play in front of an audience as I work on it in preparation for the Lark. I've been developing it through the Playwrights' Commons/Company One Playwrights' Playground this past summer (which was quite a blessing), but this was the first time I'd heard it in front of an audience as opposed to workshop participants.
This entry will be a long one. But the events are well worth recording.
About ten days ago I returned to Boston from one of my best creative and collaborative experiences in a long time. I am a person who really enjoys what I do, so these are strong words. What I am talking about here is the Playwrights' Commons Freedom Arts Retreat. This was organized by our Fearless Leader, Cruise Director, and Theatre Facilitator Extraordinaire, Ilana Brownstein. The participants besides myself were Philip Berman, Amanda Coffin, Allie Herryman, Colleen Hughes, Emily Kaye Lazzaro, Tyler Monroe, Corianna Moffatt, Nina Morrison, and Jason Weber. I knew very few of the other participants going in, and no one very well. If I may be gushy for a moment, it would be very easy to go through all of these names individually and sing their praises as artists and collaborators. Instead I will praise the synergy created by bringing everyone together and tasking us with creating new work collaboratively. Despite All of his Contributions to Modern Stage Combat, Capo Ferro Was Not a Fight Director8/23/2011 Curating information is a task that demands that one think carefully about how various types of material are being presented. As some of you may have noticed, I recently started working on a page of Stage Combat Resources for this site, as I feel that there is a need for such a thing. (I also started a more modest one for Playwriting & Dramaturgy, but that is more to guide people to the more established resources that are already out there). On the stage combat page I've listed (among other things): links to professional organizations, weapons suppliers that I can vouch for, some teaching organizations in NYC that I've trained with, and links to a bunch of stuff by & about me (including my recent McSweeney's interview, which I have to admit made me feel mildly famous). And perhaps most importantly, a selected bibliography. The bibliography is where I am having some trouble. While books by B.H. Barry and J. Allen Suddeth are obvious and required reading, I don't quite know what to do with Ridolfo Capo Ferro. Or Vincentio Saviolo. Or Morihei Ueshiba for that matter. Let me explain... So, here I am with a shiny new web domain. This is all still very much under construction and as I get more fluent in design elements the site should improve.
This is probably a good time and place to discuss some recent and upcoming projects: |
Taking Note & Taking Notes
Meron Langsner, PhD
Playwright, Theatre & Performance Scholar, Fight Director/Movement Specialist, Director, Educator Archives
June 2020
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