The Hardest Job

I was recently chatting with one of my fellow actors after a rehearsal at which we'd done some costume fittings, and I mentioned how pleased I was with my costume, because:

a) I like the way I look in it
b) It is what I would have envisioned for the character
c) It's super comfortable

She and and I were discussing the fact that often your costuming in a show doesn't flatter your own personal vanity, but you have to put that aside for the good of the show. My favorite actors to costume are the ones who, even though they may not look cool or sexy in their costume, love it anyway because it enhances the character and fits the life of the play.

I once had professor in college who told us that scenic designers are listed ahead of costume designers in the program because their job is harder. Would it surprise you to hear that he was a scenic designer himself? I call bullshit. You're never going to hear a theater space complaining to its designer that the set makes it look fat. Costume designers have to deal with the personalities and hangups and physical comfort of the people we're designing for. You can't just hammer an ill-fitting wig into place like you can a set piece (although I've sure had people try).

I love reading theatre news on Playbill.com, and they have a feature they run on Mondays where they interview an actor, and one of the questions is always "what is the worst costume you've ever had to wear?" You don't hear them asking about the worst prop or sound cue.

Sorry, actors, but it's not always about you. We designers have to negotiate so many personalities; we're trying to keep you happy AND the director happy AND deal with things like quick changes or making the continuity of the story work. You may not like the way you look, but some times it does not serve the story for you to look cute. Every story needs its clowns and villains and grotesques. What's important is to do what's best for the show. And if that's looking ridiculous or ugly, then do it, and enjoy it! That's why we act, anyway, to be the things onstage we can't be in real life.

Stage Combat

I gotta be honest; I love doing fight choreography. It probably comes from my latent desire to be an action star. I took Kung-Fu lessons when I was a kid, and I was part of a filmmaking club in college that specialized in action/thriller films, so I got to learn how to do stage fighting.

I remember doing one really long day of shooting for a thriller about a home invasion--my attacker and I spent most of it wrestling on the floor of a tiny bathroom before I chased him into the kitchen, and ultimately killed him with a meat cleaver. The bathroom was barely big enough to fit the crew, and we did a lot of shots with the cameraman standing on the toilet and the director hiding in the bathtub. I was so sore I couldn't move the next day, but it was extremely rewarding, and we got a great reaction from the crowd at our school film festival for the brutal fights.

So I'm really excited to be doing a lot of stage combat in the show that I'm rehearsing right now. Fights present a lot of challenges on stage; you need to make sure everyone stays safe, but you want the fight to look chaotic and spontaneous, but you need to keep the movement clean enough that the audience can follow the action.

One of the most important things is to make sure the audience isn't concerned about the safety of the actors. It's a weird dichotomy, but you need to maintain suspension of disbelief. The audience needs to believe that the character is being hurt, but not the actor. If they're actually worried for the actor, it will pull them out of the moment.

In my opinion, the most importants traits are to appear deliberate and determined. Each movement has to have a specific purpose; you can't flail or stumble about, even when you're the one taking the hits. I think the best way to sell taking a hit is to "ragdoll", but you still need to make it clear where the impact was, and how much it hurt. Which leads to the other element: determination. You have to act the fight. Are you angry? Scared? Tired? The fighters need to look determined to win the fight, both in their body language and facial expression.

When learning the fight choreography, you have to start out v e r y  s l o w l y, and then speed the action up. If you've ever watched DVD outtakes about fight scenes, you've probably heard the stunt coordinators say that learning a fight is like learning a dance. It sounds a bit cliche, but it's really true. Something we just started doing organically in rehearsals, and which I now use as an actual technique, is to narrate the fight as you walk through it. To literally say out loud:
"I go for a right hook"
"I duck and punch you in the ribs"
"I stumble back"
"I grab your shoulders and knee you in the gut"

It sounds really cheesy, but not only is it a great way to help remember the fight choreography, it results in clean fights.

So those are my thoughts on stage combat. We're learning another big fight tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it. Because not only is fighting on stage fun to do, when done well, it makes your show more memorable.

It also looks really cool.