September 30, 2004
Play class crash course
Stage Combat Workshop covers punches, slaps and pulls
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Safe choking, trusting punches and no-contact slaps were just some of the topics covered in the Stage Combat Workshop.
Held Saturday afternoon at the Old Town Playhouse, the class drew four area teens for a lesson in the basics of choking, biting, punching, slapping, hair pulling, ear pulling and foot stomping. At the end of the class, students also practiced the basics of falling safely.
The Traverse City Children's Theater offered the workshop and attendees relished the high-octane training in this unusual aspect of stagecraft.
"I managed to learn a lot in three hours," said Kendall Laskowski, a senior at West High School who has been in numerous productions. "It's been great, it's out of the ordinary of everything you've ever done."
The intense class focused on safety and trust between the actors as the highest priority in stage combat scenes. Instructor Nicholas Kessler, a professional actor living part-time in Ellsworth, stressed communication as key to these highly-choreographed episodes.
"The key rule of stage combat is if at any point you feel unsafe, you can stop everything and say you don't feel safe," Kessler said, who noted that eye contact was also crucial. "It is up to you the victim or you the aggressor to speak up."
The Traverse City Children's Theater held the Stage Combat workshop in part to prepare actors for their upcoming production of "Romeo and Juliet." A second workshop Sunday afternoon featured Shakespeare from an actor's perspective.
Saturday, Kessler led the students step-by-step through each of the simulated fight moves.
Much of successful stage combat is actually illusion. With hair or ear pulling, the aggressor simply puts a closed fist in the appropriate place and both actors simulate the action: the aggressor dominating and the victim screaming and cowering. During a choking scene, the aggressor never puts his hands or arms on the victim's throat.
Broadly telegraphing the move - what Kessler called the 'Hi Mom!' move - signals to the audience what you are going to do. For example with slapping or punching, the aggressor raises his arm in an exaggerated fashion before actually completing the move away from the victim's face or body. The human brain leaps to assume what happened and overlooks the lack of actual contact.
Kessler cautioned attendees to extensively rehearse combat scenes. This repetition promotes muscle memory for both parties as well as trust between the actors.
"When you're on stage, emotions can take over so that's why there's choreography and lots of rehearsal," Kessler said.
Kessler noted that fights on stage usually happen on stage at 80 percent speed while actors rehearse them at 60-75 percent speed. He told students that when they are on stage with an audience in the seats, the plot and emotions can become very vivid.
"When you're in character, you have to guard against that emotional outburst by lots of rehearsals and practice each night before the performance," he added, noting that meticulous training saved him one time from punching another actor when he was intensely in character.
Managing the appropriate scowls, groans, cowers or threats was sometimes a challenge while working through the combat moves.
"I think it is harder to try and show emotion while you're concentrating on the physical fighting," Laskowski said.
Proper reaction of the victim is fundamental to successful slaps and punches, Kessler said. A right-handed face slap from the aggressor needs the victim to throw his head to the right. He also walked students through the basics of 'naps,' which is using hand claps to make the sound of a slap.
"Up close this isn't going to look terribly real, but everyone's going to be 15-30 feet away," he said. "And it will be going much faster than we are."