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 weekend I attended two seminars taught by Rory Miller. Rory is the author of Meditations on Violence, and more recently, Facing Violence, both of which are among the best books I've read on the subject (and both of which I ended up citing quite a bit in my dissertation). In this post I'll be discussing some of his teaching and methodology as well as some of the implications. I'm responding from the perspective of a theatre and performance scholar who specializes in the representations of violence as much as from the perspective of a martial artist, self defense instructor, and fight director.
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... |
Taking Note & Taking Notes
Meron Langsner, PhD
Playwright, Theatre & Performance Scholar, Fight Director/Movement Specialist, Director, Educator Archives
June 2020
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