From the classic duel in "Romeo and Juliet" (1996) to the bloody landing at Omaha Beach in "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), to a slap across the cheek, to an all-out fisticuffs brawl, violent action graces the stages and screens of classic and popular storytelling entertainment.
The art of theatrical combat developed through forms of mock combat sports that were used for ritual and diversion, such as the medieval joust and fencing. Staged plays featured reenacted versions of these activities, mirroring real current and traditional culture. Japanese Kabuki theatre and Beijing (Chinese) Opera showcased a stylized combat, whereas English dramas in Elizabethan times integrated the common European blade fighting methods.
Today, stage combat is a highly specialized art form, regulated by guilds such as the Society of American Fight Directors, who train and test professional fight choreographers. A play or film with any kind of violent act — even as small as a slap — will often involve a certified combatant or instructor.
Meron Langsner, a Tufts drama Ph.D. candidate and a certified fight choreographer, has a hefty résumé that includes many recent credits on the Tufts stages. In an interview with the Daily, Langsner emphasized the two goals of any on-stage fight.
The two most important components are safety and aesthetics, he said, with an emphasis on safety. "The majority of actor injuries happen with things like slaps and falls."
"If you're going to have a big duel to the death with chainsaws, you're going to respect the chainsaw," he said. "But if we're doing a scene, and it's some big shouting match, and someone gets slapped, someone might do the real slap. You might think it's only a slap, but one of the top fight choreographers in the country is deaf in one ear because of a slap gone wrong."
A well-placed combat scene can act as a crucial turning-point in the plot, and the goal of the fight director is to instruct the actors how to approach and react to plot violence. A character will act in a certain way, Langsner said, if he is about to run at someone, and its important for the actor to make deliberate choices to draw the attention of the audience.
When putting on a play, a director will often bring in a stage combat expert long before the rehearsal processes begin. Depending on the director's vision for the play, fight choreography can be period-accurate or totally fantastical, limited only by the extent to which the play can encourage the suspension of disbelief in its audience.
"There's a children's play by Dave Mamet, called ‘Revenge of the Space Pandas' that has one of the greatest stage directions known to man: Vivian holds off the hordes of attacking Space Pandas using karate," he said, laughing.
In this particular scene, a fight director might play on the audience's stereotypes, pulling from a martial arts tradition and then molding it into supernatural moves that are safe for the actors but impressive to the eye.
Stage combat is a combination of dance and slight-of-hand. "The audience wants to go ‘that's cool!'" Langsner said. But even in the most realistic of scenarios, an audience's attention can be pulled away from the action if they perceive that the actor himself is in danger.
"We have this badass reputation," Langsner said of the theatrical combatant community, "But we spend all our time saying, ‘Don't bruise your knees!', or ‘Are you OK, or are you going to get hurt?'" Still, with the proper training, committed actors and a sense of creativity, stage combat uses a combination of props and bodies to effectively connect more strongly to its audience.
Of course, theatrical combat isn't limited to the live stage, but is also used in film, with mind-boggling results. On the silver screen, a director has the ability to focus the eyes of the viewer on exactly what he or she wants to show. The preparation is similar to that for a staged scene, but quick camerawork and impeccable timing allows the actors to move in anatomically impossible ways.
In both cinema and the theater, a fight scene can catapult the plot forward or completely change its direction. It moves its audience in ways that words alone can't, and when done well, it can be unforgettable.
