Do You Bite Your Thumb at Me, Sir?

The semester is in full swing, and Kleist is constantly buzzing at night as all three fall shows rehearse simultaneously. It’s an exhilarating feeling to be a part of the action, and everyone is working so hard already. Rehearsals started for Performance Ensemble Wednesday before last, and since then I’ve been trying to put together a game plan for how to assemble the fights within the show. Since the first rehearsal, I’ve only been able to pop back in a few times to talk to Anjanette and Les about my ideas, but from what I’ve seen and heard, it’s a great group of people that have proven themselves already to be able to jump up and create beautiful work on the spot. I’m hoping this will help me later on in the process.

               From the first rehearsal, ideas having been pouring from my head. Before we started, Les had us read an article called “After Postdramatic Theatre” by Bernd Stegemann which commented and analyzed the ideas behind post-dramatic theatre. Already, my head was buzzing. I had to sit down and deeply dissect the article before I fully understood it, and what it gave me was a better understanding of what we’re going for as we create devised theatre. Post-dramatic theatre challenges the conventional ways of portraying drama, and deconstructs concepts of character, plot, and story. Pioneers of post-dramatic theatre felt that traditional drama had outgrown the complexity of reality, and that the best way to then “mimic” or imitate reality was to go against expectation. I consider myself to be one who thrives off story; that’s why my favorite aspect of fighting is portraying the story. What this caused me to ask the cast of Performance Ensemble was how CAN you do theatre without story, if our purpose is to imitate and/or educate on the human condition?  Do you really need characters, plot, etc. to truly educate, or can you just hit the audience with seemingly nonsensical symbols and expect them to be wowed? I recall having similar discussions during my Improv and Choreography class last May Term in terms of how to create dance choreography. What was even more interesting was that when we viewed a piece of post-dramatic theatre, a piece called No Dice put on by the Nature Theatre of Chicago, we were all intrigued and frustrated at the same time at the nonsensical, conflicting images and sounds we were taking in. It was seemingly random and haphazard, yet I couldn’t look away. I think the intrigue of post-dramatic theatre, and outwardly nonsensical works of art is that we as humans have an inner need to figure things out, to give what we’re seeing a justification, or reason, or… a plot. And that no matter what we end up putting on stage, the audience will end up taking something away based on the formation of this “plot” in their brain.

               Now, how does all this information fit into my role as Fight Director for this piece? Good question. I’m not positive exactly how this relates to how my ideas began form, but suddenly a process started to take form in my head. To preface everything here, I’m approaching this project as one who has never fight choreographed. I’ve put together small bits of dance choreography, but most of my fight experience up to this point has been created by another and executed by me. So, how does one create work when you’ve only been trained in how to do?

               Sidenote: Anjanette has asked me to focus on the opening fight as opposed to the Mercutio/Tybalt/Romeo duel later because the way the piece is shaping up, that scene is going in the direction of tap shoes. I loved devised work J

               First off, research. Currently, I’ve been trying to find more information of the culture of dueling within sixteenth-century Italy. Luckily, I’ve come across two books written by Frederick R. Bryson: The Point of Honor in Sixteenth-Century Italy:  An Aspect of the Life of the Gentlemen, and The Sixteethn-Century Italian Duel: A Study in Italian Renaissance Social History. This is helping me give context to the time period in terms of how violence played a role in the day to day life. Additionally, one of the most important aspects of a fight to me is not just technique and accurate use of the weapon, but that there is an accurate story being portrayed. For this, and other help in the realm of fight choreography, I’m obtaining a copy of Fight Directing for Theatre by J Allen Suddeth, a recognized Fight Master in the SAFD.

               Fun fact: so far, I've found that there's no real historical record of the biting of the thumb gesture. From what I can tell, it's origin is Shakespeare. That makes putting the gesture into context a bit more challenging, and as it is the impetus of the fight of the fight, we may have to get creative.

               My research will continue throughout the process of course, but next my plan is to have a discussion, or series of discussions with the cast of Performance Ensemble. I plan on giving them a background on dueling and the weapons, and then pose questions to them on concepts of honor and violence. I’m also trying to put together an exercise where I have them visualize a fight from start to finish with a fictional partner, and then see what develops from there. Anjanette leads them through similar exercises during most rehearsals, so I’m going to ask her for some assistance in putting this together. Overall, I just want them to realize that a fight is not just a series of moves. It is a conflict that becomes physical based on many psychological variables. A fight does not just happen.

               The next, and sort of the most daunting/crazy aspect of my plan right now, is that I want the actors to try to generate choreography. After all, this is what is referred to as an actor-generated piece.  But what’s that you say? How can a group of untrained actor combatants create choreography when they’ve most likely never picked up a weapon? Well, my first step to proving this question wrong is to drill them on the weapons themselves. We don’t have huge amounts of time, but I plan on spending at least one rehearsal, or however much time Anjantette can spare me, drilling basics with the cast. I’ve put together an outline for a basic Rapier and Dagger class that I’ve already had Dusten review, and hope that I can impart to them enough knowledge of the weapon to make the next step possible. I plan on then giving pairs of partners a starting position or move (or an ending or middle position position/move). Then, having them use the concepts of targeting, martial force, and storytelling, I want them to start piecing together choreography. I may give them actual characters, or I may just let them go until they decide who wins. I may do something like assign on character to be a fighter, and the other to be a nonfighter, and see what happens. It could go anywhere.

               Or it could be a complete disaster. And it very well might be. And if it turns out that way, at least I’ll have a place to start. As I learned from May Term last year, video everything. I could use what went right or didn’t go right as a jumping off point to solidify my own choreography, or maybe they will actually come up with something brilliant and my job will be cleaning up and making things safe. That’s my major purpose, though, to make things safe. The second I see something go wrong during this process, I will scratch it and change tactics because no one’s life or career is worth losing over my ambitious brain. This project excites me and scares me every time I think about, but dreams aren’t worth following if they don’t terrify you in the process. So this is where I’m at so far. Time to get to work, and start fighting the good fight. So fight on! J