Acting is a difficult craft. Not only must the body and voice be properly trained to handle whatever a production requires, the work also demands an open mind and spirit capable of responding to subtle changes in rehearsal and performance. Many directors use improvisation to nurture that responsiveness. It can bring forth artistic discoveries both vast and deep—moments of inspiration that cannot simply be summoned on command.
Throughout the twentieth century, several influential forms of actor training placed the body at the center of performance and gave improvisation an important role in discovering physical action. Some of the strongest resistance to deliberately choreographed stage combat has come from practitioners influenced by Grotowski’s “poor theatre,” the Lecoq method of movement-based acting, and the Viewpoints work originated by Mary Overlie and later adapted for actors by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau. These traditions differ considerably, but all place great value on physical impulse, ensemble awareness, and movement discovered through exploration rather than imposed upon the actor in advance.
Over decades of teaching and choreographing stage combat, I have encountered the strongest resistance to predetermined fight choreography among instructors and students trained in these traditions. I have watched them carry improvisational principles directly into staged violence, allowing punches, slaps, falls, grappling, and weapon actions to arise from physical impulse while trusting the performers’ training and sensitivity to keep one another safe. I have seen this approach both performed and taught.
It is dangerous.
And I believe there is a fundamental flaw in applying these methods to physical interactions between actors. They place great trust in the performers’ responsiveness to one another, but responsiveness is not the same thing as predictability. No degree of ensemble awareness can guarantee that two bodies moving without a predetermined agreement will maintain safe distances, follow safe trajectories, or respond safely when something unexpected occurs.
The difficulty arises when improvisational freedom is extended to physical contact. Some practitioners make a distinction between movements they regard as dangerous and those they consider harmless, allowing the latter to emerge spontaneously from the actors’ impulses. But that distinction is unreliable. A slap, a shove, a grab, or a fall—even a kiss, a caress, or an affectionate squeeze of the hand—cannot be declared safe simply because it appears relatively innocuous. Whenever bodies come together, or movements bring them into potentially dangerous proximity, the actions must be carefully evaluated, mutually agreed upon, and rehearsed until they are reliably repeatable.
What troubles me even more is what happens when someone gets hurt. I have repeatedly seen injuries attributed to the actor’s failure to understand the exercise, respond properly to a partner, or fully absorb the principles being taught. The assumption seems to be that the method is sound and the performer has failed to apply it correctly. But that reasoning ignores the possibility that the method itself is at fault. If a training technique depends upon an actor developing such extraordinary physical sensitivity that unexpected contact can be managed safely, then injuries are not necessarily evidence that the actor has failed to learn. They may be evidence that the instructor has failed to provide a safe method of learning. A teaching system that places responsibility for its failures entirely upon the student, without questioning its own assumptions, has a serious problem.
A shift of only a few inches in distance or a few degrees in trajectory can transform a safe action into a dangerous one. An unexpected slap may connect where it was never intended. A shove may catch an actor off balance. A sudden embrace may interfere with a partner’s movement or breathing. Even an affectionate gesture can become unwelcome when it differs from what the actor has agreed to perform. Agreement to one physical action does not imply agreement to every possible variation of it, and if an actor withdraws that agreement, the action must stop until an acceptable alternative has been established.
Violence on stage must be repeatable, predictable, and controlled. The actions, cues, targets, trajectories, and methods of execution must be planned, rehearsed, and agreed upon in advance. Physical sensitivity may help actors execute those movements, but it cannot substitute for that agreement.
Improvisational physical training can certainly develop useful qualities in an actor: awareness of balance, responsiveness to partners, freedom of movement, and the ability to recognize subtle physical impulses. These attributes can support stage combat training in the same way that strength, flexibility, and coordination support any physical discipline. What they cannot do is replace choreography.
Nothing in staged violence can be allowed to be improvised.
This does not mean that the acting becomes fixed or mechanical. The characters’ intentions, fears, discoveries, and emotional responses must remain alive from moment to moment. An actor can discover a new reason for striking a blow without changing the blow itself. Indeed, knowing exactly what a partner will physically do can free the actor to respond emotionally without having to worry about personal safety. The choreography remains fixed so that the acting can remain spontaneous.
Improvisation belongs in the exploration of the scene: its circumstances, relationships, intentions, and emotional stakes. A fight director may also experiment with possible movements, one action at a time, under controlled conditions. That is not improvised combat. It is choreography being constructed. Once an action has been selected, it must be set, rehearsed, and repeated.
If the agreed choreography breaks down during a rehearsal or performance, the actors must never improvise their way through it. They must stop, disengage, and omit the remaining action. The moment the predetermined agreement is lost, the fight is over.
Playing with the Fight
Actors are given the liberty to play as children while exploring their characters, and rightly so. But a lot of them also want to play with the fight techniques they are learning. The impulse is understandable. Stage combat is exciting, and discovering that you can throw a convincing punch, execute a spectacular fall, or swing a sword with confidence can be exhilarating. It’s only natural to want to show off a little, or try out those new skills outside rehearsal.
But please don’t do it.
When actors begin experimenting with fight techniques outside rehearsal, they are working without the conditions that made those actions safe in the first place. There may be no qualified supervision, no properly prepared space, and no agreement about what the partner is supposed to do. Even when the participants believe they are merely repeating something they have already learned, little variations begin to creep in. Distance changes, targeting becomes casual, and movements become exaggerated for amusement. Repeat these variations often enough and they can become habitual.
There is another problem. The actor who is playing may be completely comfortable with the action, while the person being grabbed, shoved, or surprised may not be. The fact that both performers participated in the same fight rehearsal does not give either one permission to spring a movement on the other whenever the mood strikes.
The very slow movements and sometimes mind-numbing repetition of careful fight rehearsals have a purpose. We are developing physical actions that must remain controlled and predictable even when the actors are emotionally engaged and performing at full theatrical intensity. Casual experimentation works against that discipline. There is plenty of room for play in the theatre. There is no room for unauthorized violence, however entertaining or harmless it may appear.
But there is another kind of improvisation that can be considerably more dangerous, and it doesn’t necessarily involve the actors at all.
In a theatre, everyone understands the rules. The actors know their choreography, the technicians know their cues, and the audience understands that the violence is an illusion. Spectators may gasp, scream, or recoil, but they recognize that they are watching a performance. They are extraordinarily unlikely to leap out of their seats to defend Desdemona from Othello.
Take that same scene into a public square, however, and everything changes. The people passing by have no reason to know that the violence is staged. They have not agreed to the theatrical convention, and they may respond as they would to an actual assault. In effect, you’ve introduced an improviser into your fight, one who doesn’t know the choreography, hasn’t rehearsed, and may not even know that a play is taking place.
That brings me to something I call…
Yelling Theatre in a Crowded Firehouse
On occasion, theatres get the idea that, in order to drum up interest in an upcoming show, a selected scene from the play should be performed in a public area with a lot of foot traffic. Not a bad thought. The public gets a taste of the production, flyers can be passed out, and perhaps a few more tickets will be sold. And what better way to get the passing public’s attention than by staging a fight scene!
I have a great fear of performing fights in uncontrolled, non-theatrical environments.
The only circumstances under which I would feel even slightly less uneasy would be if the event were staged almost like a miniature theatre: a clearly defined playing area, controlled entrances and exits for the performers, a formal announcement explaining what the audience is about to see, large signs posted along every path leading into the area, and the actors visibly in costume. Everyone who might encounter the performance should have a reasonable opportunity to recognize it as theatre before the action begins.
In other words, once you’ve taken every possible precaution to make it obvious that this is theatre—and in the process drained most of the spontaneity from the performance—the risk becomes only slightly more tolerable.
My concern is not simply that someone might misunderstand what is happening. It is that someone might act upon that misunderstanding.
An unsuspecting passerby who believes an actual assault is taking place may run, call 911, or attempt to intervene. Someone may panic and cause an injury while trying to escape. Someone else may rush forward to protect the apparent victim. And in a country where many people carry firearms, it is possible that an armed bystander might decide that the situation requires immediate intervention. The likelihood of such an encounter ending in serious injury may be small. But the consequences can be fatal.
These are not merely imaginary concerns. Over the years, I have received calls from police departments investigating incidents in which theatrical weapons were mistaken for real ones. Once a member of the public mistakes theatrical violence for genuine violence, events can develop in ways that no fight choreographer can anticipate or control.
Consider a sword fight taking place on a sidewalk. The actors know that the weapons are theatrical props. They know where the blows will land and how the fight will end. But what does a passerby see? Two people threatening one another with swords. Perhaps one is already on the ground, while the other is raising a blade to strike. Why should anyone assume it is a play? An elaborate costume is no guarantee. Real assaults have involved knives, swords, and other unusual weapons, and someone dressed strangely is not necessarily someone pretending to be dangerous. Nor can we assume that everyone who witnesses the scene will have seen its beginning or heard an announcement.
Now consider the person who decides to intervene. They may believe they are doing precisely the right thing, perhaps even saving a life. They don’t know the choreography, they don’t understand the theatrical illusion, and they may not find any reason to wait while someone explains it to them. From their point of view, an assault is taking place, and immediate action may be necessary. If that person is armed, a perfectly innocent theatrical performance can become a genuine life-or-death encounter in seconds.
We have now lost every protection upon which our choreography depends. We cannot anticipate the bystander’s actions, control their movements, or expect them to recognize our theatrical signals. We cannot even be certain that they understand the language in which we announce the performance.
We have introduced an unknown participant into what was supposed to be a carefully controlled illusion. And unlike a missed parry or an unexpected shove between trained performers, this misunderstanding may involve someone who is genuinely frightened, genuinely angry, or genuinely armed. Is that really worth selling a few more tickets?
I would much rather have a company invite the public into a clearly identified theatrical space, where the nature of the event is unmistakable, than take staged violence into an uncontrolled public setting and hope that everyone understands what is happening.
Theatre depends upon a shared understanding between performers and audience. We can make the audience believe that the danger is real precisely because they understand that it isn’t. Remove that understanding, and we are no longer performing the same act.
Whether the improvisation comes from an actor experimenting with a movement, a partner departing from the choreography, or an unsuspecting member of the public responding to apparent violence, the underlying danger is the same: someone is acting outside the agreed conditions of the performance.
Stage combat is safe only to the extent that we control the conditions under which it is performed. We can never eliminate every risk, but we can refuse to introduce unnecessary ones. And the moment we allow an uncontrolled participant into our carefully rehearsed illusion, we have surrendered the very safeguards that make that illusion possible.