Journal of Theatrical
Combatives May 2008
Blood, Revenge, and
Safety on Stage:
An Explication of a
Stage Duel in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette
copyright © 2008 Meron Langsner, all rights reserved
I give you the aftermath of a duel: Mercutio lies dying in his
kinsmen's arms, his last breath leaving him, as Romeo braces himself
to claim vengeance. Tybalt, laughing, picks up the fallen Mercutio's
rapier, parading it before his cronies. He spits on it and kicks it
towards Romeo's feet; mocking his perceived cowardice, mocking the
death of his friend, and mocking his stained honor.
Mercutio's last breath leaves him. Romeo, enraged and heartbroken,
draws his sword with his right hand, swearing vengeance. He spots
Tybalt across the stage from him, and, picking up the sword of the
fallen Mercutio in his left hand, sings out a challenge before
charging Tybalt with both weapons.
Thus begins a climactic moment in Romeo et Juliette, Gounod's
opera adapted from Shakespeare's classic play, performed in 2004 to
packed houses in downtown Boston by Boston University's Opera
Institute and Chamber Orchestra.
The story is Shakespeare's, the songs Gounod's, the staging is the
work of acclaimed director James Marvel, and the violence… well,
the violence is composed by the author of this piece.
A fight director's job makes for a lot of cocktail party
conversation--they pretend to fight; or, more specifically, they
compose fights and get other people to act them out safely and
convincingly on stage. Sometimes it's just a slap or a fall,
sometimes it's a fistfight or domestic violence. The good stuff
though, the things that one becomes a fight director to do, those are
the swordfights: the climactic duels, the moments about to be
described to you.
Romeo is charging with a heavy rapier in each hand, swinging first to
the belly, which Tybalt jumps back to evade, and then to the head,
which he ducks. Now, Romeo swings both swords together at Tybalt's
flank. Tybalt must use both hands on his lighter sword to maintain a
defense strong enough to hold himself together. The fight continues.
The audience sees a maddened hero in a state of bloodlust. The
actors themselves are running through the steps as they would a
dance. But this is a dance with all manner of sleight of hand and
safety measures. In fact, all performers involved in an onstage
fight are required to attend a special rehearsal, or Fight Call, each
night before the performance to ensure safety during these sequences.
To paraphrase many a stage combat instructor, they are not really
fighting, they are performers using props to tell a story.
Let's revisit that first charge. The singer playing Romeo sets
himself and measures the distance to the singer playing Tybalt. Romeo
makes eye contact to check in and see that his partner onstage
is ready for the sequence. Tybalt is ready. Romeo cues the belly
cut. Tybalt sees the cue and moves before the cut starts. That
movement is the signal for Romeo to continue the cut, and he takes a
step forward and swings the sword (three feet of steel, not sharp,
but neither would it tickle) through the empty space that only a
split second ago contained the body of his fellow performer. Depending
on the sightlines, the sword may never go anywhere near
him; there is a technique wherein the sword stays almost in line with
the attacker's belt and only swings outward to the side once it is
clear of the defender's space. Now the head cut, using the other
sword. The drill is almost the same, Romeo cues towards Tybalt's
head, Tybalt ducks, Romeo swings. The double flank cut with a parry
is a bit simpler; Romeo cues and swings, Tybalt meets the attack with
his own blade, and the swords glance off of each other with the
illusion of solid impact. This illusion is created by the attacker,
who, if he executes the technique properly, spends the bulk of his
momentum in an arc that peaks a few inches from the point of impact
on his partner's sword. The result, if done right, is a clear
ringing sound as the blades meet. These performers have trained
hard, and the audience hears two almost simultaneous bell like rings.
When done wrong, there is a dull clanking sound, and risk of broken
blades and injury.
If a fight director has done the job well, it should be difficult for
an audience to know when the director's work has ended and the fight
director's has begun. Ideally, the director’s work will overlap
into the fight director’s and vice versa. In the case of this
scene it would be difficult to trace where the decision for Tybalt to
spit on Mercutio's sword came from. What is known is that somewhere
along the line the fight director decided that Romeo should pick up
his dead friend's sword in addition to his own. Symbolically it
makes sense; dramatically it makes sense. Choreographically, the
audience has just seen a flashy duel between Tybalt and Mercutio in
which both used one sword. The fight was full of quick movements,
stylish choreography, and nimble sword work. To give the audience
something even remotely similar is to risk losing its interest.
Audiences are fickle, their attention is hard won and easily lost, so
double swords and a mad charge it is.
The antagonists break apart. Romeo taps the ground in front of him
with one rapier, leading Tybalt on and taunting him, and,
incidentally, moving the fight and the three-foot-long pieces of
swinging metal away from the chorus members who surround the scene.
Tybalt attacks. His sword is lighter and faster, with a fighting
style to match. Romeo parries with one hand and then the other,
managing to defend against a series of attacks that appear to be
lightning fast. He counters. Tybalt catches the attack with his own
sword and casts it aside with a broad circular movement called a
bind. In the bind, the defender's sword moves the attacker's sword
from one side of his body and up to its diagonal opposite. In this
case the bind ends with a casting off of Romeo's sword but not a
disarm. The bind is a big dramatic move, and the actors must be in
tune for it to be effective onstage.
The bind in competitive foil fencing is almost identical
mechanically, but, and this is a big but, a fencer's bind is tiny and
too fast for the untrained eye to follow. The competitive fencer
aspires to surgical precision and the ability to hit his or her
opponent at will and before they even know what is happening. If the
opponent cannot see it, spectators can expect no better. The
aspirations of the stage fencer are in almost direct opposition.
Onstage, each stroke of the sword must be clear to both the partner
(as opposed to opponent) and the spectators.
At this point in the scene, Tybalt has just opened a path through
Romeo's defenses. He attacks once more. Remember, this is an opera,
the music dictates how long this fight will take, and it must make
both musical and dramatic sense. Soon William Lumpkin, the
conductor, will signal that the next sequence of notes be played by
the orchestra, and Romeo will have a line to sing. The choreography
must match and support that line. That sequence starts playing as
Tybalt attacks.
Romeo catches the attack with one of his swords, and moves it into an
envelopment; a movement from the same family of techniques as the
bind, but even bigger and more dramatic. This fight must end within
the next couple bars of music, however, so the envelopment is only
the beginning of the endgame. While one of Romeo's rapiers moves
clockwise, carrying Tybalt's sword with it, the other rapier circles
counterclockwise to meet both other blades, trapping Tybalt's sword
in a scissor. Romeo moves forward into Tybalt's immobilized sword
hand, and while one blade keeps him safe and makes sure the sword
points are well away from both of them, the other rises and one
forearm touches another, with the details being lost in the deceived
depth perception of the audience. The audience thinks it has seen
Romeo smash Tybalt's sword arm with the pommel of his rapier. What
in fact has happened is that the singers moved closer together and a
bit of sleight of hand took place. Tybalt's sword slides down
Romeo's rapier and away from them both. Romeo continues his forward
motion until they are shoulder to shoulder. He collides with Tybalt
and they begin to spin together. While Romeo's body is hiding the
view, Tybalt takes a sword under his arm, creating the illusion of
being run through. The music reaches a crescendo, Romeo completes
the spin and sings his line, "Et toi!" or "at thou." As the spin
finishes, Romeo is facing the audience with arms crossed
and a blade on each side. Tybalt is thrown off of the impaling
blade. He falls across the stage and curls up facing away from the
audience. Romeo runs after him, swinging one sword in a wide arc. He
makes eye contact with Tybalt. They check in with each other one
more time as performers. Romeo completes the swing, and brings his
point down a foot away from Tybalt's stomach, tilted at a safe angle,
again fooling depth perception from the audience perspective. All
the angles are calculated to appear brutal according to the
audience's perceptions while being completely safe for the
performers. Tybalt takes hold of the blade and brings it close to
his body. Romeo sings again as he twists the blade slowly. Tybalt
writhes and is still. Romeo pulls out the sword. The orchestra
plays on.
Mercutio’s body lies on one side of the stage, Tybalt’s on the
other. Romeo, exhausted, shocked, and disgusted by it all, walks
slowly across the stage, dragging the points of two rapiers on the
ground behind him. The orchestra plays. The rest of the cast comes
onstage, and the consequences of this recent violence begin to run
their course as the plot progresses. The opera goes on.
MERON LANGSNER is a doctoral candidate
in
the Department of Drama & Dance at Tufts University, where he is
currently teaching a course on armed stage combat. His dissertation
concerns the representation of martial arts on the American stage. He
is the Emerging Playwright in Residence at New Repertory Theatre
through a grant from the National New Play Network and a part time
faculty member at Emerson College. Meron has published work on stage
combat and martial arts in Text & Presentation 2006
(McFarland), The Fight Master and The Cutting Edge (SAFD
Publications), The Brandeis Graduate Review, and Physical
Training: Fitness for Combatives (EJMAS).
Our
Sponsor, SDKsupplies
