A word on those Vampire Cowboys in NYC...

This past Friday night, 7/17/09, the ladytype friend and I journeyed down to the HERE Arts center to catch the remounted production of Vampire Cowboy's "Fight Girl Battleworld" which was heralded as a zenith of comic silliness.

Now, before I go too far, I do need to say that I've been vaguely familiar with the Vamp's work over the last few years, though I'm not a huge fan. I am in fact, far too biased regarding their work when it comes to scripting, fight choreography and tech. I'm not personally big on mixing too much comedy and violence, nor am I a fan of the sort of martial arts stage styles they tend to use. Also, as an Impetuous Theater Group pal, the ultimately unrelated "Living Dead in Denmark's" sudden emergence prior to Brian Smallwood's "12th Night of the Living Dead" always left a bad taste in my mouth.

All of that aside (and by "that" I mean my own personal tastes) we took a look at "FGBW" and I am hereby issuing the following statement: it was tremendously fun.

The script itself does border on plain stupid in some instances (this coming from a guy who finds zombies in Shakespeare to be a truly first class jest so... take "stupid" with a grain of salt) but "Fight Girl" was more than expertly performed by a hilarious cast of nimble, strong and engaging performers.

I'll leave off the commentary on the acting performances and comic timing for someone else though, simply stating that I'm a sci-fi geek and there were enough nerd-core puns, gags, and easter eggs to keep even jaded, bitter me thoroughly amused from start to finish.

Since this is a blog on fight choreography though, let's get to the point where the fist meets the air. It was clear to me that Friday night's show was a little tired, and while there was a never a moment I was concerned about safety, there were more than a few times the moves were stretched past the point of credulity.

This is a high energy show, and credit is certainly due to the cast and creator/choregrapher Qui Nguyen, but it struck me that this limited remount could have used a little more rehearsal in the space, correcting sightlines, and in general some tightening of the combat.

Nguyen and the director use a variety of film style techniques to keep long fights moving to great effect, both in choreography and comic potential, but I found that ultimately, all of the combatants were immersed in using a very finite series of moves in a similar style. To me, the fighting characters all seemed to have trained together. Doubtless, the actors all trained together - and again to good effect. I'm just being nit-picky about the lack of combat diversity among characters, several of whom came from entirely different worlds.

I'd have enjoyed seeing a variety of styles mashed up - some brawling, messy and wild, as contrasted with a more expert level of martial art, something like kenpo, or aikido. To me, clashing styles in a fight is part of the story telling, probing for weaknesses and holes in defense, rather than flying fists and kicks is something I find reveals a great deal about character in a fight, also allowing for earned results in an outcome. In "FGBW's" case, many of the moves became predictable, and were so far from their targets as to be wholly comical - perhaps even when not intended to be so.

Also, there was an interesting lack of hand held melee weapons. It would appear that in the far flung and silly future of "Fight Girl Battleworld", the deplorable myth of the unarmed super-combatant persists still.

Now, don't get me wrong- I had a blast. FGBW was innovative in a lot of exciting ways, the staging alone catapults this show into the realm of unforgettable. In fact, I haven't had this much fun at a show in a loooooong while.

I'll be going back to see what the Vampire Cowboys have in store for their next offering of course, but I'm going to hope for something new. I've seen a lot of the same punches, kicks and martial arts based moves onstage already. Here's hoping they can level up for the next show.

The good news is that even if they don't experiment, they are still so good at what they already do that I'll likely only complain once more and gloss over virtually everything they do right. And for the record, what they do right is better than most everything else I see in that vein.