Who's running this thing?

Over the last 10 years on the independent theater scene here in NYC, I've been in a lot of shows, and worked on building more than a few. Along the way I also had the chance to get my "hands dirty" by staging some violence - nothing too heavy, the odd bout of fisticuffs, an occasional beating and a fair bit of gun play.

I've always got a charge out that, and it always floors me how many actors out there are just plain miserable at (and terrified of) using modern stage weapons. I've seen plenty of stage directions that read like this:

"Doug pulls a knife and Frank blocks the attack and wrestles the knife away from him."

The subsequent staging of that moment usually left me wondering which actual fighting style the fight choreographer knows, or why these guys are suddenly proficient at martial arts, or somehow worse, it left me wondering why "Doug" attacked "Frank" with a dagger in a style extremely reminscent of European sword duelling.

On top of that, there's always a pistol showing up on stage being weilded extremely cautiously by an actor who is terrified his 1/4 load blank round will kill everyone onstage. The poor actor holds the pistol like it's their first day on the firing range, and it inevitably detracts from the action of the play. Especially when the character is a police officer, soldier, or someone with more than a passing familiarity with a weapon.

Obviously, not every character is supposed to be good with a weapon, but when they are, and the actor is not, it kills me. I'm a big proponent of safety first, especially when dealing with weapons, and combat choreography... but there's a difference between Safety First and boring stage combat. There's also a world of difference between real combat and telling a visual story. But there has to be a balance.

So what's it take?

I think it takes being expressly familiar with the real stuff - or as close as one can safely get. So that means training. It means being a good and patient teacher. And above all it means having an artistic eye towards making the combat look as real as possible while still being visually gripping and not so fast and brutal that the storytelling falls by the wayside. Every real or training fight I've seen has been over in a few shots. Many stage fights I've seen have been long, and silly. I intend to split the difference.

In any case... I'll be posting regularly as I go - it's a fun side project.